The First Violin. Fothergill Jessie
she reiterated with a harsh laugh as we walked toward the Goldsternstrasse, our destination. “Men – no. We despise their company, you see. We only talk about them directly or indirectly from the moment of meeting to that of parting.”
“I’m sorry there are no gentlemen,” said I, and I was. I felt I looked well.
Arrived at the scene of the kaffee, we were conducted to a bedroom where we laid aside our hats and mantles. I was standing before the glass, drawing a comb through my upturned hair, and contemplating with irrepressible satisfaction the delicate lavender hue of my dress, when I suddenly saw reflected behind me the dark, harshly cut face of Anna Sartorius. She started slightly; then said, with a laugh which had in it something a little forced:
“We are a contrast, aren’t we? Beauty and the Beast, one might almost say. Na! ’s schad’t nix.”
I turned away in a little offended pride. Her familiarity annoyed me. What if she were a thousand times cleverer, wittier, better read than I? I did not like her. A shade crossed her face.
“Is it that you are thoroughly unamiable?” said she, in a voice which had reproach in it, “or are all English girls so touchy that they receive a compliment upon their good looks as if it were an offense?”
“I wish you would not talk of my ‘good looks’ as if I were a dog or a horse!” said I, angrily. “I hate to be flattered. I am no beauty, and do not wish to be treated as if I were.”
“Do you always hate it?” said she from the window, whither she had turned. “Ach! there goes Herr Courvoisier!”
The name startled me like a sudden report. I made an eager step forward before I had time to recollect myself – then stopped.
“He is not out of sight yet,” said she, with a curious look, “if you wish to see him.”
I sat down and made no answer. What prompted her to talk in such a manner? Was it a mere coincidence?
“He is a handsome fellow, nicht wahr?” she said, still watching me, while I thought Frau Steinmann never would manage to arrange her cap in the style that pleased her. “But a Taugenichts all the same,” pursued Anna as I did not speak. “Don’t you think so?” she added.
“A Taugenichts– I don’t know what that is.”
“What you call a good-for-nothing.”
“Oh.”
“Nicht wahr?” she persisted.
“I know nothing about it.”
“I do. I will tell you all about him some time.”
“I don’t wish to know anything about him.”
“So!” said she, with a laugh.
Without further word or look I followed Frau Steinmann down-stairs.
The lady of the house was seated in the midst of a large concourse of old and young ladies, holding her own with a well-seasoned hardihood in the midst of the awful Babel of tongues. What a noise! It smote upon and stunned my confounded ear. Our hostess advanced and led me with a wave of the hand into the center of the room, when she introduced me to about a dozen ladies: and every one in the room stopped talking and working, and stared at me intently and unwinkingly until my name had been pronounced, after which some continued still to stare at me, and commenting openly upon it. Meanwhile I was conducted to a sofa at the end of the room, and requested in a set phrase, “Bitte, Fräulein, nehmen sie platz auf dem sofa,” with which long custom has since made me familiar, to take my seat upon it. I humbly tried to decline the honor, but Anna Sartorius, behind me, whispered:
“Sit down directly, unless you want to be thought an utter barbarian. The place has been kept for you.”
Deeply impressed, and very uncomfortable, I sat down. First one and then another came and spoke and talked to me. Their questions and remarks were much in this style:
“Do you like Elberthal? What is your Christian name? How old are you? Have you been or are you engaged to be married? They break off engagements in England for a mere trifle, don’t they? Schrecklich! Did you get your dress in Elberthal? What did it cost the elle? Young English ladies wear silk much more than young German ladies. You never go to the theater on Sunday in England – you are all pietistisch. How beautifully you speak our language! Really no foreign accent!” (This repeatedly and unblushingly, in spite of my most flagrant mistakes, and in the face of my most feeble, halting, and stammering efforts to make myself understood.) “Do you learn music? singing? From whom? Herr von Francius? Ach, so!” (Pause, while they all look impressively at me. The very name of von Francius calls up emotions of no common order.) “I believe I have seen you at the proben to the ‘Paradise Lost.’ Perhaps you are the lady who is to take the solos? Yes! Du lieber Himmel! What do you think of Herr von Francius? Is he not nice?” (Nett, though, signifies something feminine and finikin.) “No? How odd! There is no accounting for the tastes of English women. Do you know many people in Elberthal? No? Schade! No officers? not Hauptmann Sachse?” (with voice growing gradually shriller), “nor Lieutenant Pieper? Not know Lieutenant Pieper! Um Gotteswillen! What do you mean? He is so handsome! such eyes! such a mustache! Herrgott! And you do not know him? I will tell you something. When he went off to the autumn maneuvers at Frankfort (I have it on good authority), twenty young ladies went to see him off.”
“Disgusting!” I exclaimed, unable to control my feelings any longer. I saw Anna Sartorius malignantly smiling as she rocked herself in an American rocking-chair.
“How! disgusting? You are joking. He had dozens of bouquets. All the girls are in love with him. They compelled the photographer to sell them his photograph, and they all believe he is in love with them. I believe Luise Breidenstein will die if he doesn’t propose to her.”
“They ought to be ashamed of themselves.”
“But he is so handsome, so delightful. He dances divinely, and knows such good riddles, and acts —ach, himmlisch!”
“But how absurd to make such a fuss of him!” I cried, hot and indignant. “The idea of going on so about a man!”
A chorus, a shriek, a Babel of expostulations.
“Listen, Thekla! Fräulein Wedderburn does not know Lieutenant Pieper, and does not think it right to schwärm for him.”
“The darling! No one can help it who knows him!” said another.
“Let her wait till she does know him,” said Thekla, a sentimental young woman, pretty in a certain sentimental way, and graceful too – also sentimentally – with the sentiment that lingers about young ladies’ albums with leaves of smooth, various-hued note-paper, and about the sonnets which nestle within the same. There was a sudden shriek:
“There he goes! There is the Herr Lieutenant riding by. Just come here, mein Fräulein! See him! Judge for yourself!”
A strong hand dragged me, whether I would or not, to the window, and pointed out to me the Herr Lieutenant riding by. An adorable creature in a Hussar uniform; he had pink cheeks and a straight nose, and the loveliest little model of a mustache ever seen; tightly curling black hair, and the dearest little feet and hands imaginable.
“Oh, the dear, handsome, delightful follow!” cried one enthusiastic young creature, who had scrambled upon a chair in the background and was gazing after him while another, behind me, murmured in tones of emotion:
“Look how he salutes – divine, isn’t it?”
I turned away, smiling an irrepressible smile. My musician, with his ample traits and clear, bold eyes, would have looked a wild, rough, untamable creature by the side of that wax-doll beauty – that pretty little being who had just ridden by. I thought I saw them side by side – Herr Lieutenant Pieper and Eugen Courvoisier. The latter would have been as much more imposing than the former as an oak is more imposing than a spruce fir – as Gluck than Lortzing. And could these enthusiastic young ladies have viewed the two they would