"Tell...? Not in so many words, but when we went for walks together in
the park or went out in the evening on the lake, why, he practically
spoke of nothing but her--of course without mentioning her name ... and
the better he liked me--men really are such awfully funny people--the
more jealous he became about the other woman.... But if it were only
that? What young man isn't involved in a serious love affair? Do you
think by any chance, mamma, that George Wergenthin is not?"
"In a serious one ... no, that will never happen to him. He's too cold,
too superior for that ... he hasn't got enough temperament."
"That's exactly why," explained Else, airing her knowledge of human
nature. "He'll slip into some whirlpool or other and get taken out of
his depth without his having noticed it, and some fine day he'll get
married ... out of sheer indolence ... to some person or other who'll
probably be absolutely indifferent to him."
"You must have a definite suspicion," said Frau Ehrenberg.
"I have."
"Marianne?"
"Marianne! but that's been over a long time, mamma. And that was never
anything particularly serious, either."
"Well, who is it then?"
"Well whom do you think, mamma?"
"I have no idea."
"It's Anna," said Else curtly.
"Which Anna?"
"Anna Rosner, of course."
"But...."
"You can say 'but' as much as you like--it's a fact."
"Else, you don't seriously think that Anna with her reserved character
could so far forget herself as to----"
"So far forget herself...? Really, mamma, the number of expressions
you keep on using--anyway, I don't think that's quite a case of one's
forgetting oneself."
Frau Ehrenberg smiled, not without a certain pride.
The bell rang outside.
"It's he at last," said Else.
"It might quite as well be Demeter Stanzides," observed Frau Ehrenberg.
"Stanzides was to bring the Prince along sometime," said Else casually.
"Do you think that will come off?" inquired Frau Ehrenberg, letting her
knitting fall into her lap.
"Why shouldn't it come off?" said Else. "They are so intimate."
The door opened. As a matter of fact it was none of the expected
visitors who came in, but Edmund Nürnberger. He was dressed, as
always, with the greatest care, though not after the latest fashion.
His tail coat was a little too short and an emerald pin was stuck in
his voluminous satin tie. He bowed as soon as he had got to the door,
though his demeanour expressed at the same time a certain irony at his
own politeness. "Am I the first?" he inquired. "No one here yet? Not a
Hofrat--nor a count--nor an author--nor a diabolical female?"
"Only a woman who never was one, I'm sorry to say," answered Frau
Ehrenberg as she shook hands with him.
"And one ... who will perhaps become one sometime."
"Oh, I am convinced," said Nürnberger, "that if she only takes it
seriously, Fräulein Else will succeed in that." He stroked his smooth
black somewhat glossy hair slowly with his left hand.
Frau Ehrenberg expressed her regret that their expectation of his
coming to Auhof had not been realised. Had he really spent the whole
summer in Vienna?
"Why do you wonder so much, my dear madam? Whether I am walking up and
down among mountain scenery or by the shore of the sea or in my own
room, it doesn't really matter much in the end."
"But you must have felt quite lonely," said Frau Ehrenberg.
"You certainly realise solitude more clearly when there's no one in
the neighbourhood who shows any desire of talking to you.... But let's
talk of more interesting and promising men than I am. How are all the
numerous friends of your popular family?"
"Friends!" repeated Else. "I should like first to know what you mean by
the word?"
"Well, all the people who say something agreeable to you from whatever
motive, and whom you believe in when they say it."
The door of the bedroom opened, Herr Ehrenberg appeared and greeted
Nürnberger.
"Are you ready packed?" asked Else.
"Packed and ready," answered Ehrenberg, who had on a grey suit that was
far too loose and was biting a fat cigar between his teeth. He turned
to Nürnberger to explain.... "I'm off to-day, just as I am, to Corfu
... for the time being; the season is beginning and the Ehrenberg 'at
homes' make me feel sick."
"No one asks you," replied Frau Ehrenberg gently, "to honour them with
your presence."
"Cute answer, eh," said Ehrenberg, puffing at his cigar. "I don't mind,
of course, staying away from your real 'at homes.' But when I'd like
to dine quietly at home on a Thursday and there's an attaché sitting
in one corner and a hussar in the other, and some one over there is
playing his own compositions and some one else on the sofa is being
funny, while by the window Frau Oberberger is fixing up an assignation
with any one who happens to come along ... well, it really gets on my
nerves. One can stand it once, but not a second time."
"Do you think you'll remain away all the winter?" asked Nürnberger.
"It's possible. I intend, you know, to go further, to Egypt, to Syria,
probably to Palestine as well. Yes, it's perhaps only because one's
getting older, perhaps because one reads so much about Zionism and so
forth, but I can't help it, I should like to see Jerusalem before I
die."
Frau Ehrenberg shrugged her shoulders.
"Those are matters," said Ehrenberg, "which my wife don't
understand--and my children even less so. What do you know about it,
Else? no, you don't know anything either. But when one reads what's
going on in the world it often makes one inclined to think that there's
no other way out for us."
"For us?" repeated Nürnberger. "I've not observed up to the present
that Anti-Semitism has done you any particular harm."
"You mean because I've grown a rich man? Well if I were to tell you
that I don't give any shakes for money, you would, of course, not
believe me, and quite right too. But as sure as you see me here, I
swear to you that I would give half my fortune to see the worst of our
enemies on the gallows."
"I'm only afraid," remarked Nürnberger, "that you would have the wrong
ones hanged."
"There's not much danger," replied Ehrenberg. "Even if you don't catch
the man you're after, the man you do catch is bound to be one of them,
too, right enough."
"This is not the first time, my dear Herr Ehrenberg, that I observe
that your standpoint towards this question is not ideally objective."
Ehrenberg suddenly bit through his cigar and with fingers shaking with
rage put it on the ash-tray. "If any one here's to tell me ... and even
... excuse me ... or perhaps you're baptised...? One can really never
tell nowadays."
"I'm not baptised," replied Nürnberger quietly. "But on the other
hand I am certainly not a Jew either. I've ceased to belong to the
congregation for a long time, for the simple reason that I never felt
myself to be a Jew."
"If some one were to bash in your top hat in the Ringstrasse because,
if you will allow me to say so, you have a somewhat Jewish nose,
you'd realise pretty quick that you were insulted because you were a
Yiddisher fellow. You take my word for it."
"But, papa, how excited you are getting," said Else, and stroked him on
his bald reddish shiny head.
Old Ehrenberg took her hand, stroked it and asked, apparently without
any connection with what he had been saying before: "By-the-bye, shall
I have the pleasure of seeing my son and heir before I leave?"