charming face that a smile stole across the features of her growling
brother-in-law.
“Well, I should think so,” he said; “did you suppose we would leave you
at home?”
“Thank you, Karl--thank you!” cried Annchen, in a state of bliss; and
while Helen was softly caressing her “bear” upon one side, his little
sister-in-law was patting his shoulder upon the other, crying, “Thank
you, Karl,--I think you are perfectly lovely!”
“Well, you’re the first person that has told me so since I was two
years old,” remarked the judge, whose dudgeon was melting under the
beams of the rapture he had been the cause of, like snow before the
summer’s sun. “Now I know how to tame such shy little birds. What,
Helen? Perfectly lovely, am I?”
And with a half-ironical, half-flattered shrug of his shoulders he left
the room to devote himself to assiduous studies of the time-table,
which to him, as to most people who rarely travel, was a book of seven
seals.
The day on which this memorable resolution was formed was a cold, windy
autumn day, making it imperative to choose warm clothing for the night
journey. All day the ladies were occupied with putting their wearing
apparel in order, which, in the face of this journey, proved to be
inadequate in many respects.
“We’ll buy all that in Berlin,” said Helen consolingly to her sister,
who was putting on her plain little straw hat with a look of deep
concern, quite unconscious of the fact how charmingly becoming it was
to her rosy face. The judge walked up and down in the room, casting
brief remarks at his ladies from time to time. “Don’t take your entire
outfit along just for two or three days,” he remarked warningly.
Evening came fast enough; every moment was made the most of, and when
the lamps were lit there was still this and that waiting to be attended
to. At the last moment--they were just sitting down to tea--a thought
struck the paterfamilias; he touched the bell.
“Did you attend to what I told you this morning?” he asked the maid in
his mystifying fashion.
Pauline looked at her master with no very intelligent expression in her
face.
“What do you mean, sir?”
“Did you get what I told you?” queried the judge. Pauline was silent,
thereby giving most decided expression to her bewilderment.
“Why, Karl, do tell her what you mean,” implored Helen; “there’s no
time to be lost--we must be going!”
“Very well,” replied the judge discontentedly; “of course it is more
than you can endure not to know what I am referring to! Did you go and
fetch my fur-lined great-coat from the furrier’s?”
Pauline blushed guiltily.
“Oh, dear me, I forgot all about it, sir--I’ll run there now as fast as
I can!”
“Yes, and you’ll run back no doubt when we are in the cars,” said her
master contemptuously. “Well, then, I shall take my death of cold on
the journey--at any rate I shall be spared the trouble of telling
Lebermann just how my funeral came off!”
“Well, well, Karl,” said Helen, soothing his dismal forebodings; “seems
to me there might be some other way out of your difficulty. Pauline can
fetch the great-coat to the station and hand it to you there. Do you
understand, Pauline?”
Pauline nodded humbly and departed, while the judge arose and took
up the leather bag containing the money and tickets, and enjoined
his ladies to make haste. “Put on your things, children--I think the
carriage is coming!”
As the party reached the station their happy mood was somewhat
dampened, for Pauline and the great-coat were not in sight. All in vain
did eager eyes pierce the darkness of night, and all were about to
succumb to fate and take their seats in the car, when the long-expected
one, like Schiller’s diver, appeared breathless upon the scene, holding
the coat on high, and swinging it like a triumphal banner. The judge
without delay slipped into the warmer garment, and indeed it was high
time, for already the conductor was slamming to the doors of the other
compartments,--a sharp whistle, and the train started.
Our three travellers were in the rosiest mood imaginable. Helen, who
had not set foot outside of the provincial town, which was now her
home, since her marriage, pictured to herself the glories of Berlin in
the brightest of hues, and Annchen dreamed vague, golden dreams, and
indulged in exquisite air-castles, in which at the decisive moment her
unknown hero was always seen leaning out of some window.
The judge was gleefully rubbing his hands.
“Now then--at last we are free of that miserable place,” he said,
making himself comfortable in his corner of the compartment. “Now let
us all go to sleep and open our eyes to-morrow morning in Berlin!”
The train sped through the night air; and it was not until it had
reached Berlin that the Schwarzes awoke with the proud consciousness of
being in the Imperial Capital.
The judge put his somewhat dishevelled head out of the window.
“See the hurry and bustle of the crowd,” he said cheerfully. “This
is rather different from the streets of Solau! Here the individual
disappears like a drop in the ocean, and no one knows or cares what his
neighbour is about. Come, children, we must get out!”
He stretched himself with lazy ease, and took his hand-luggage down out
of the net, then jumped down himself after his ladies.
“Look you, there’s not a person knows us here,” he continued; “we can
do exactly as we please for three days--it’s like being at a grand
masquerade!”
“Good morning, Herr Judge!” a voice cried at that moment behind him.
“Shall I fetch you a cab?”
The addressed started perceptibly. A porter quite unknown to himself
or his ladies stood before him and held out his hand for the luggage,
with a peculiar, knowing smile upon his features, then quickly piled
them upon his back with skilful dexterity.
“How do you know who I am?” asked the judge, somewhat irritated at this
unexpected violation of his _incognito_.
His unknown friend, however, had already turned upon his heel in search
of a cab, and was now storing his burden upon the top.
A glorious autumn morning was dawning over town, and the unknown
splendour before them beckoned invitingly to our unsophisticated
friends.
“Look here, Karl,” began Helen, who had meanwhile conferred with
Annchen as to their mutual wishes, “what do you say to going on foot
to the hotel? As we are only to be here for so short a time, we should
make the most of every moment, and seems to me, after last night’s
journey, a walk would be much more refreshing to us than a ride in a
close cab!”
“Oh, yes!” cried Annchen, whose beaming eyes gazed upon the new world
of wonders as a child might gaze upon fairyland.
“All right, go a-head!” replied the judge, whom the air of the
metropolis had suddenly changed into a jovial fellow. “I’ll run and buy
a map of Berlin, and then join you!”
He paid for the cab while the ladies were walking slowly a-head, and
gave a fee to make sure that the charioteer would safely deposit the
trunks at the hotel; but as he was turning back to the station to buy
the map the cab-driver called out--
“Thank you kindly, Herr Judge!”
That good gentleman was perceptibly taken aback; he cast a suspicious
glance behind him,--there stood the porter who had addressed him in
like manner, and the two men were grinning diabolically.
“Aha,” said the judge to himself, “that fellow noticed that his
foolish speech vexed me, and now they are having a laugh at me in
company. I suppose that’s Berlin humour, and it has got to be endured!”
In possession of a Berlin town-map, which rivalled a moderate-sized
bed-screen in size, the judge hastened to join his ladies, who had been
caught by a shop window in the Friedrichstrasse as securely as flies
caught in a fly-trap.
“That’s right,” said the judge indulgently, “take your time looking at
these things. Where you are as utterly unknown as we are here, there is
no harm in looking at show-windows.”
He thereupon gave the objects in the window a close inspection.
“Well, Herr Schwarz, what is it that’s taking your fancy?” suddenly
cried a shrill voice, and a shoemaker’s apprentice with undisguised
mirth in his rogue’s visage slipped by him laughing.
The judge was speechless.
“This is getting worse and worse!” he exclaimed; “there’s something
wrong here! Come, children, this is positively uncanny. This looks like
the artful device of some scoundrel. Let us hurry up and go to the
hotel. The next time any one calls me Herr Judge or Herr Schwarz, it
will be the worse for him!”
The sisters were growing nervous also.
“Yes, yes,” assented Helen, “we’ll go to the hotel--it is very
unpleasant here in the streets! I don’t understand how it is, Karl,”
she added; “you must bear a striking resemblance to some popular town
celebrity, whose name happens to be Schwarz into the bargain!”
“And who happens to be a judge as well?” asked Karl sarcastically.
“That’s very probable, my child! I have always said that no sooner do
you set out to have a good time than immediately something occurs to
frustrate your plans!”
They had walked on, eagerly discussing the possible cause of this
unusual occurrence, and suddenly they discovered that they had lost
their bearings.
“Where are we, anyway?” asked Annchen with a trembling voice. “I
thought we were to be in Unter den Linden by this time?”
“That is so, Karl,” added Helen; “you are taking us nobody knows where!
These streets are not at all attractive, and I am tired out!”
Karl forthwith produced his tremendous map of the town.
“Wait one moment,” he said with dignity; “I’ll tell you immediately.”
And he then and there unfolded the enormous sheet. A playful morning
wind, however, mercilessly jerked it hither and thither, and there
was nothing for it but to beg the ladies to stand on either side as
banner-holders, and help him save it from destruction. But it took Karl
longer than he thought to find his way about, and while he was still
engaged in the effort, a tall, elegant-looking man walked down the
street, and, with evident amusement, glanced at the conspicuous group,
especially noting the charming person of little Annchen. The face of
the stranger wore a pleasant, good-humoured expression, and, moreover,
was so handsome and attractive that there was no perceptible reason
why Annchen, raising her eyes at that moment, should suddenly blush
to the roots of her hair, her hand at the same time trembling so that
she could scarcely hold the map over which Karl and Helen were still
chanting a woful duet in search of their hotel.
The stranger, evidently struck by the appearance of the lovely,
embarrassed girl, walked on slowly and then turned and came back. There
was undisguised merriment and a half-controlled laugh upon his lips as
he passed around behind Karl and before the fair banner-holders.
“Good morning, Herr Judge Schwarz,” he said, taking his hat off low to
the ladies, and turned to pass on his way.
But he had reckoned without his host. In a paroxysm of rage the judge
darted after him.
“Sir, what does this mean? How do you know my name and title?” he
cried, panting with indignation, while Helen vainly tried to appease
him.
Karl shook off her hand impatiently.
“How can you have the effrontery to address me by my name?” he repeated
in a tone of thunder.
“My dear sir,” replied the stranger, laughing, “if your name is to be
kept secret, allow me to call your attention to the fact that it would
be the part of wisdom not to wear it plainly upon your back!”
Karl gazed upon the stranger in speechless astonishment. Helen turned
her husband dexterously around. Ah, here was the solution of the
riddle! That benighted furrier had forgotten, in the press of business,
to remove the slip of paper from the judge’s great-coat, by which that
valuable garment had been distinguished from others entrusted to his
keeping, and poor Karl had been walking about for an hour in Berlin
with an enormous placard on his back bearing the inscription, “Herr
Judge Schwarz!”
While Helen and Anna were occupied in removing this enemy of the
much-desired _incognito_ from the back of their liege lord and master,
Annchen found time to whisper to her sister, “That was Kurt!”
“Nonsense!” cried Helen in surprise, now giving Karl’s tormentor a
scrutinising glance, while the latter was vainly endeavouring to pacify
the enraged Karl--more likely, I regret to say, for the sake of the
pretty damsel than for brotherly love. But Karl was obstinate, and
would have nothing to do with forgiveness, and even the kind offer of
the unknown to show him the way had no further effect than to extract a
surly reply, “You may, for all I care!”
[Illustration: “WALKING ABOUT FOR AN HOUR IN BERLIN WITH A PLACARD ON
HIS BACK.”]
“We want to go to the R---- Hotel,” added the judge reluctantly, “if
you know where that is?”
The stranger laughed again.
“Oh yes, I know perfectly well,” he said; “it is not at all out of my
way, if you will allow me to escort you there.”
“No, thank you,” said Karl curtly; “just tell me the way to go. My bump
of locality is very well developed, but in this confounded town there’s
no finding one’s way about.”
“Allow me to mention my name,” said the stranger after he had given
brief directions as to the way, lifting his hat.
“Don’t trouble yourself, thank you,” growled the judge; “it is not my
habit to make acquaintances upon the street. Come along, children.”
And after a brief and not very reassuring farewell to the young man, he
gave an arm to each of his ladies, and drew them along after him.
The stranger, thus brusquely dismissed, looked after the three
departing figures for a moment, gave a low whistle, and went on his way
still laughing.
Meanwhile Helen, touched by the look of disappointment on her sister’s
face, had smartly reproached her husband for showing so little
politeness to the stranger.
“I don’t understand you, Karl,” she said. “How could you be so rude to
the young man? It was only too natural that, under the circumstances,
he indulged in the harmless joke of addressing you!”
“The impudence of it!” cried Karl in a rage.
“In fact, you ought to be grateful to him,” Helen added boldly, “for
without him and his explanation you would still be walking about with
the slip on your back, like a book from the circulating library. The
young fellow looked very nice!” Karl stood stock-still.
“I’ll tell you what, children,” he said energetically, “now leave me in
peace about your unknown friend! That’s the way all women are--that’s
what a woman’s opinion is worth! Looked nice, did he? And such
creatures are all for equality with men! If you are on the jury, and a
convicted murderer has blue calf’s eyes, every one of you would acquit
him! I’d have you to know that it is my firm conviction the man was a
sharper!”
“Shame on you, Karl!” cried Anna, her just ire getting the better of
her shyness. Her hero a sharper,--this was too bad!
Her brother-in-law gave her a penetrating look.
“What business is it of yours, if I may be permitted to ask?”
“Annchen has seen him at D----!” said Helen, endeavouring to hide her
sister’s embarrassment.
“What?” asked Karl suspiciously, “you know the fellow? What’s his name?”
That, as we know, was a very inconvenient question. That the unknown
was called Kurt would scarcely suffice to satisfy the judge by way of
personal information, and that was all Annchen knew about him. So she
was silent, and confined herself to blushing once more, which, however
pretty it might look, could scarcely be regarded as a satisfactory
explanation, at least not to this unsentimental brother-in-law and
judge.
“Aha!” said Karl, with a lordly air, “you are so well acquainted that
you do not so much as know his name! Take my word for it, the man was a
sharper--that is my firm opinion. Such fellows always look very elegant
and well-bred. Not another word about him!”
Meanwhile they had safely reached the hotel, and it was time to yield
to the imperious need for rest and sleep. This, to be sure, was not
indulged in for long, for excitement and the wish to enjoy Berlin to
the full soon drove the pleasure-seekers out again.
In the dining-room the question, “What now?” was discussed at length
by the couple, while Annchen listened to everything that was proposed
with unmistakable indifference. To her Berlin had grown to be nothing
but an enormous frame to hold the likeness of the adorable, who had
crossed her path once more this morning in so surprising a fashion,
and, alas! seemed utterly unconscious of the fact that he had ever seen
her before.
The unknown, whom we will herewith introduce to our readers as Dr.
Rüdiger, had meanwhile also reached the R---- Hotel, at which he too,
as good luck would have it, had put up.
Himself unnoticed, he observed how the judge and his ladies, after a
short parley with the _portier_, left the hotel, and no sooner had they
turned the next corner than he too approached that personage.
“Has Herr Judge Schwarz gone out already?” he asked nonchalantly.
“Yes, sir, Herr Schwarz and the ladies have just gone,” replied the
_portier_, who in his person united the dignity of a Spanish grandee
with eely suavity.
“That’s too bad!” remarked the wily Rüdiger. “We were going to make an
engagement for this evening!”
“Herr Schwarz ordered tickets to the opera for to-morrow night,” said
the _portier_.
“Ah! that’s capital,” replied Rüdiger. “You may procure a ticket for me
in the same box; I will come and ask you for it.”
He walked away cheerfully, and patiently did the principal sights of
Berlin, in the secret hope that fortune would favour him and bring
about a meeting between him and the Schwarz family. But for the present
this hope came to naught.
Meanwhile our party had set out on their trip of pleasure. First they
had devoted themselves to show-windows, and with many an admiring
ejaculation had come to the conclusion that Berlin was the only place
worth sojourning in. Then they pantingly followed two closed Imperial
carriages, and endeavoured to make each other believe that they had
caught a sight of the persons within. Finally, after the museum had
been hurried through with profound awe and moderate comprehension, they
all experienced decided pangs of hunger, and, with the intention of
dining cosily together, they entered a superb restaurant on the ground
floor.
The judge escorted his ladies to an inviting little table near one of
the windows, from where one had a fine view of the streets and the busy
crowds--not, to be sure, with the additional advantage mentioned in the
well-known song--
“Across the lands we gaze, oh!
While we are all unseen----,”
for every glass of wine and every forkful of meat could be closely
scrutinised by the passers-by.
But the pleasing knowledge of being quite unknown comforted the judge
for this drawback of his position.
The waiter’s question as to what they wished to have for dinner might
have appeared as an insult to the judge in his exceeding love of
secrecy; being, however, very hungry he generously forgave him, and the
three together assiduously studied the _menu_, which sported a variety
of names which might have been made to stand for almost _anything_, so
that whatever one ordered there was always a pleasant surprise in view.
Soon a bottle with a promising silvery cork stood upon the table in a
dainty cooler, and the judge was just raising his glass to drink the
ladies’ health: “Children,” he said, “I can’t tell you how delightful
this is, to feel that one is sitting here free of all good friends and
neighbours. Here’s to our _incognito_!”
There was a playful tap at the window. Karl, poor fellow, started as
if he had beheld a ghost--indeed I know not but a ghost even would have
been a more welcome sight at that particular moment than the smiling
face of Herr Lebermann, who, with the unmistakable consciousness of
giving the judge and his family a great and unexpected pleasure,
pressed his nose flat against the window-pane.
[Illustration: “THE SMILING FACE OF HERR LEBERMANN.”]
The judge dropped his fork. “For heaven’s sake--Lebermann!” he
stammered with difficulty.
A further critical remark was suppressed, for the good Lebermann, with
a happy smile upon his face, stood before our pleasure-seekers.
“Well now, you’d never have supposed you’d find me here, would you?” he
asked, full of rapture.
“No--that is the last thing I should have thought of,” replied Karl
mildly. “What brought you here?”
“I’ll tell you all about it in a minute,” replied Herr Lebermann,
having given a chivalrous greeting to the ladies and proved himself
thoroughly well-informed by looking at Annchen with the words, “Ah,
this, I suppose, is your visitor that came the other night!”
He drew a chair up to the table and ordered a beef-steak.
The judge looked about him wildly, and was apparently so greatly in
danger of indulging in unwary remarks, that Helen, to avert the storm,
imprudently reminded the apothecary of his promised narrative.
“Well, you see,” began the interesting arrival, “I noticed some time
ago that there was something wrong with my molar tooth--the third in
the upper row,” he added, to expel every doubt. “I believe I mentioned
it to you once, Herr Judge?”
“It’s quite possible!” sighed Karl brokenly.
“Yes, yes, I remember it quite well! We were sitting at König’s in the
restaurant--it is not very long ago! Well, never mind! So, then, the
day before yesterday, in the afternoon, that tooth began to hurt me.”
“Too bad!” said Helen pitifully, feeling it incumbent upon her to say
something polite.
“It wasn’t very bad,” said Herr Lebermann consolingly, “but still I
felt it, you know! Yesterday, in the morning, the head-man had left
open the back-door to the shop, and then there is always a draught;
you have no idea how it blows. Time and time again I have said to him:
‘Herr Semmler,’ says I, ‘don’t leave that back-door unlatched,’ but he
can’t get over the habit! You will say, you wouldn’t be put upon!”
He looked at his victims expectantly.
“I don’t say any such thing!” growled Karl, his soul burning within
him. “Hurry up, children--we must be going!”
“I shall be through in a minute,” said Herr Lebermann. “Where did
I stop? Ah yes, I know! That miserable Semmler. When I tell him
courteously it has no effect, and I don’t like to be curt to him,
for he is a decent enough fellow, and it’s hard to find such another
nowadays. He is quite to be depended upon. He has a little property
too----”
“Yes, but Herr Lebermann,” interrupted Helen, who already saw her
husband in spirit rush at him with a knife, “you were going to tell us
what brought you to Berlin!”
Herr Lebermann cut up his beef-steak with much deliberation.
“I was just about to tell you,” he said with a courteous bow to Helen.
“Well, you see, last night the door was left open again. I was somewhat
heated. I had on a heavy over-coat,--perhaps I had walked faster than
usual,--I shouldn’t at all wonder if I had!--I entered the shop--and
there was a tremendous draught! You really have no idea how bad it
was--and at that very moment my tooth was at it again! I was quite
beside myself, went upstairs to talk to my wife. It is really very
convenient to have our lodgings in the same house now. ‘Clara!’ says I,
‘my tooth!’ ‘The one that was stopped?’ says she. ‘Yes,’ says I. Do you
know my Clara, Frau Schwarz?”
Helen gave an affirmative nod--she felt her eyelids growing heavy.
Karl nervously drummed on the table, and Annchen was the only one who
was not bored, for she was looking out upon the street in feverish
excitement, hoping to catch a glimpse of her unknown hero, and hearing
never a word that was spoken about her.
“Well,” continued Lebermann, “my wife, resolute as she is, said
‘Lebermann’--she always calls me Lebermann now, since our youngest is
not called Fatty any more, but Robert, and you know my name is Robert
too, and there was everlasting confusion--Robert--Robert--there was no
knowing which Robert was meant. Well, to make a long story short, she
said, ‘Lebermann,’ says she, ‘this is a serious matter. You’d best go
to the right man at once!’ No sooner said than done. I went and got a
round-trip ticket--took the cars--came here--went to the dentist the
first thing this morning--and now I’m free of all that, and I have
had the rare good fortune of meeting you! This is delightful--really
delightful!”