So that was the pass we had come to. On the drive home I kept repeating
to myself:
"Hanckel, what a lucky dog you are! Such a treasure at your time of
life! Dance for joy, shout aloud, carry on like a crazy man. The events
of the day call for it."
But, gentlemen, I did not dance for joy, I did not shout aloud, I did
not carry on like a crazy man. I looked over my bills and drank a glass
of punch. That was the extent of my celebration.
The next day Lothar Puetz came riding up in his light-blue fatigue
uniform.
"Still holding on to your commission, my boy?" I asked.
"My resignation has not yet gone into effect," he answered, looking at
me grimly, but avoiding my eyes, as if I were the cause of all his
trouble. "At any rate, my leave has expired. I have to go to Berlin."
I asked if he could not get an extension. But I noticed he did not want
it--was suffering with homesickness for the club. We all know what that
is. Besides, he had to sell his furniture, he explained, and arrange
with the creditors.
"Well, then, go, my boy," I said, and hesitated an instant whether I
should confide my new joy to him. But I was afraid of the silly face
I'd make while confessing, so I refrained. Another thing that kept me
was a feeling stowed away deep down at the bottom of my heart--I was
counting on a rejection. I feared it, and I hoped for it, too.
The feeling was something like--but what's the use of delving into
feelings? The facts will tell the story.
Exactly a week later in the morning the postman brought me an envelope
addressed in _her_ handwriting.
At first I was dreadfully afraid. Tears sprang into my eyes. And I said
to myself:
"There, old man, now you've been relegated to the scrap heap."
At the same time a peaceful renunciation came over me, and while
opening the envelope I almost wished I might find in it just a plain
mitten.
But what I read was:
"Dear Friend:--
I have thought the matter over, as you wished. I am confirmed in my
decision. I shall expect to see you to-day when you call on my father.
Iolanthe."
Happy! Well, of course, I was happy--at such a moment--it goes without
saying. But, then, how ashamed I was. Yes, gentlemen, ashamed, ashamed
to face a soul. And when I thought of all the dubious, sarcastic looks
that people would soon be casting at me, I felt I'd rather back out of
the business.
But the hour had come. Up and be doing.
First I beautified myself. I cut my chin twice shaving. One of the
stable-boys had to ride two miles to the chemist's to get me some
flesh-coloured court-plaster. My waistcoat was drawn in so tight I
could scarcely breathe, and my poor old sister nearly went wild trying
to give my necktie that careless, free-and-easy look I wanted.
And all the time I kept thinking and thinking--it never left me for an
instant:
"Hanckel, Hanckel, you're making an ass of yourself."
But my entry into Krakowitz was grand--two dapper greys of my
own breeding--silver collar trimmings--a new landau lined with
wine-coloured satin. No prince in the world could have come a-wooing
more proudly.
But my heart was thumping at my ribs in abject cowardice.
The old man received me at the door. He behaved as if he hadn't the
faintest suspicion of what was doing.
When I asked him for a talk in private, he looked surprised and made a
face, like a man scenting a "touch" from an unexpected quarter.
"You'll soon be pulling in your sails," I thought. I naturally supposed
that at the first word there would be an excellently acted emotional
scene--kisses, tears of joy, and the rest of the rigmarole.
That's how vain it makes you, gentlemen, to possess a wide purse.
But the old fox knew how to drive a bargain. He knew you had to run
down the prospective purchaser in order to run up the price of your
goods.
After I proposed for his daughter's hand, he said, all puffed up with
suddenly acquired dignity:
"I beg pardon, Baron, but who will guarantee that this alliance,
which--revolve the matter as you will--has something unnatural about
it--who will guarantee that it will turn out happy? Who will guarantee
that two years from now my daughter won't come running back home some
night, bareheaded, in her nightgown, and say, 'Father, I can't live
with that old man. Let me stay here with you'?"
Gentlemen, that was tough.
"And in view of all these circumstances," he continued, "I am not
justified as an honourable man and father in entrusting my daughter to
you----"
Very well, rejected, made a fool of. I rose, since the affair seemed to
me to be ended. But he hastily pressed me back into my seat.
"Or, at least, in entrusting her to you and observing the forms that I
feel a man like me owes a man like you, or to express myself more
clearly--by which a father endeavours to assure his daughter's
future--or, to express myself still _more_ clearly--the dowry----"
At that I burst out laughing.
The old sharper, the old sharper! It was the dowry he had been sneaking
up to! That was what the whole comedy had been about.
When he saw me laugh, he sent his dignity and his pathos and his
feeling of pride to the devil and laughed heartily along with me.
"Well, if that's the way you are, old fellow," he said, "had I known it
right away----"
And with that the bargain was struck.
Then the Baroness was called in, and, to her credit be it said, she
forgot her assigned role and fell on my neck before her husband had had
a chance, for the sake of appearances, to explain the situation.
But Iolanthe!
She appeared at the threshold pale as death, her lips tightly
compressed, her eyes half shut. Without saying a word and standing
there motionless as a stone, she held both hands out to me, and then
allowed her parents to kiss her.
You see, that gave me food for thought again.