“Yes. I suppose you did not imagine that he would forget himself to
that extent?” She smoothed her little black silk apron and looked at me
with an expression that was almost scorn.
“No--I certainly should not have believed that,” I answered candidly.
“How could it have happened?”
Naturally, I did not expect an explanation. But Theresa began of
herself to tell me the story of her unhappy marriage; began to tell it
with a self-possession which showed that she felt assured of a tribute
of sympathy from every one. She told me of her fruitless attempts to
make of her husband a sensible, useful, practical husband and citizen.
For a time everything seemed to go right--until the child died. But
from then on his guilty conscience had drawn him more and more away
from her and from her influence. He neglected his practise more and
more, he spoke quite openly in terms of scorn about his profession, he
fell into bad company, began to go about with people who let their hair
grow and didn’t wear shoes--and with them he appeared to have entirely
lost all sense of what was decent and sensible.
I listened in silence, shocked in my inmost heart to see how her hatred
seemed to have robbed this woman of all sense of shame.
“But Philip is a noble and true character,” I said finally. “He goes
his own way perhaps-- But, believe me, he will come to himself again in
solitude.”
“In solitude?” she queried, with a scornful dropping of the corners of
her mouth. “Philip is utterly ruined, I tell you. Because I refused to
become a pupil to his immoral theories of life, he sought and found a
more credulous companion. He is with her now, in Greece, I believe, or
God knows where--”
The faded eyes in the embittered little face gazed angrily into the
distance, as if her spirit followed her husband and the other woman.
Then her glance fell slowly back to the table, and she noticed that
during her narrative I had mechanically taken the amulet from the
little pearl bowl and had let it fall upon one of the books.
Crushing her moistened handkerchief in her left hand, with the right
she took up the amulet, laid it back in its place beside the little
glass bottle, and pushed the little bowl until it stood just as it had
before, to the left side of the majolica plate.
Then I understood my poor friend, and my heart forgave him.
THE FUR COAT
BY LUDWIG FULDA
[Illustration]
_Fulda’s greatest achievement, perhaps, is his translation into
German of Molière’s masterpieces, the success of which probably
led him to also translate De Rostand’s “Cyrano de Bergerac.”
But his popularity rests chiefly on his dramas, the best known
of which is “The Talisman,” and on his short stories. When
Fulda went to Munich in 1884, he came for a short time under
the influence of Paul Heyse, evident in his short stories of
the period, but soon fell into the inevitable realism of the
present age in fiction. Later still he applied himself closely
to the study of the language and artistic form of poetry. It
is not surprising, then, to find his style so graceful and
elegant._
_Fulda was born in 1862 at Frankfort-on-Main. His early studies
at Heidelberg, Berlin, and Leipzig were chiefly in German
philology, history of literature, and philosophy. For his book
on Christian Science he received a university degree._
[Illustration]
THE FUR COAT
THE STORY OF A MATRIMONIAL DIFFERENCE