Diederich secretly took her part. He was swept by a wave of chivalry: He would have liked to make it possible for her to do everything she wished, to be happy and to owe her happiness to him. … Then Herr Göppel asked him if he would like to go to the concert. "I don't know," he said indifferently, looking at Agnes who leaned forward. "What sort of a concert is it? I go only to concerts where I can get beer."
"Quite right," said Herr Göppel's brother-in-law.
Agnes had shrunk back, and Diederich regretted his statement.
They were all looking forward to the custard but it did not come. Herr Göppel advised his daughter just to have a look. Before she could push away her plate Diederich had jumped up, hurling his chair against the wall, and rushed to the door. "Mary! the custard!" he bawled. Blushing, and without daring to look any one in the face, he returned to his seat, but he saw only too clearly how they smiled at one another. Mahlmann actually snorted contemptuously. With forced heartiness the brother-in-law said: "Always polite; as a gentleman should be." Herr Göppel smiled affectionately at Agnes, who did not raise her eyes from her plate. Diederich pressed his knees against the leaf of the table until it shook. He thought: "My God, my God, if only I hadn't done that!"
When they wished each other "gesegnete Mahlzeit" he shook hands with everybody except Agnes, to whom he bowed awkwardly. In the drawing-room at coffee he carefully chose a seat where he was screened by Mahlmann's broad back. One of the aunts tried to take possession of him.
"What are you studying, may I ask, young man?" she said.
"Chemistry."
"Oh, I see, physics?"
"No, chemistry."
"Oh, I see."
Auspiciously as she had begun, she could not get any further. To himself Diederich described her as a silly goose. The whole company was impossible. In moody hostility he looked on until the last relative had departed. Agnes and her father had seen them out, and Herr Göppel returned to the room and found the young man, to his astonishment, still sitting there alone. He maintained a puzzled silence and once dived his hand into his pocket. When Diederich said goodbye of his own accord, without trying to borrow money, Göppel displayed the utmost amiability. "I'll say good-bye to my daughter for you," said he, and when they got to the door he added, after a certain hesitation: "Come again next Sunday, won't you?"
Diederich absolutely determined never to put his foot in the house again. Nevertheless, he neglected everything for days afterwards to search the town for a place where he could buy Agnes a ticket for the concert. He had to find out beforehand from the posters the name of the virtuoso whom Agnes had mentioned. Was that he? hadn't the name sounded something like that? Diederich decided, but he opened his eyes in horror when he discovered that it cost four marks fifty. All that good money to hear a man make music! Once he had paid and got out into the street, he became indignant at the swindle. Then he recollected that it was all for Agnes and his indignation subsided. He went on his way through the crowd feeling more and more mellow and happy. It was the first time he had ever spent money on another human being.
He put the ticket in an envelope, without any covering message, and, in order not to give himself away, he inscribed the address in the best copper-plate style. While he was standing at the letter-box Mahlmann came up and laughed derisively. Diederich felt that he was discovered and looked earnestly at the hand which he had just withdrawn from the box. But Mahlmann merely announced his intention of having a look at Diederich's quarters. He found that the place looked as if it belonged to an elderly lady. Diederich had actually brought the coffee pot from home! Diederich was hot with shame. When Mahlmann contemptuously opened and shut his chemistry books Diederich was ashamed of the subject he was studying. The man from Mecklenburg plumped down on the sofa and asked: "What do you think of the little Göppel girl? Nice kid, isn't she? Oh, look at him blushing again! Why don't you go after her? I am willing to retire, if it is any satisfaction to you, I have fifteen other strings to my bow."
Diederich made a gesture of indifference:
"I tell you she is worth while, if I am any judge of women. That red hair!—and did you ever notice how she looks at you when she thinks you can't see her?"
"Not at me," said Diederich even more indifferently. "I don't care a damn about it anyhow."
"So much the worse for you!" Mahlmann laughed boisterously. Then he proposed that they should take a stroll, which degenerated into a round of the bars. By the time the street lamps were lit they were both drunk. Later on, in Leipzigerstrasse without any provocation, Mahlmann gave Diederich a tremendous box on the ear. "Oh," he said, "you have an infernal ———." He was afraid to say "cheek." "All right, old chap, amongst friends, no harm meant," cried the Mecklenburger, clapping him on the shoulder. And finally he touched Diederich for his last ten marks. … Four days later he found him, weak from hunger, and magnanimously shared with him three marks from what he had meanwhile borrowed elsewhere. On Sunday at Göppel's—where Diederich would perhaps not have gone if his stomach had not been so empty—Mahlmann explained that Hessling had squandered all his money and would have to eat his fill that day. Herr Göppel and his brother-in-law laughed knowingly, but Deiderich would rather never have been born than meet the sad, inquiring eyes of Agnes. She despised him. In desperation he consoled himself with the thought: "She always did. What does it matter?" Then she asked if it was he who had sent the concert ticket. Every one turned to look at him.
"Nonsense! Why on earth should I have done that?" he returned, so gruffly that they all believed him. Agnes hesitated a little before turning away. Mahlmann offered the ladies sugar-almonds and placed what was left in front of Agnes. Diederich took no notice of her, and ate even more than on the previous occasion. Why not, since they all thought he had come there for no other reason? When some one proposed that they should go out to Grünewald for their coffee, Diederich invented another engagement. He even added: with "some one whom I cannot possibly keep waiting." Herr Göppel placed his closed hand on his shoulder, smiled at him, with his head a little on one side, and said in an undertone: "Of course you know the invitation includes you." But Diederich indignantly assured him that had nothing to do with it. "Well, in any case you will come again whenever you feel inclined." Göppel concluded, and Agnes nodded. She appeared to wish to say something, but Diederich would not wait. He wandered about for the rest of the day in a state of self-complacent grief, like one who has achieved a great sacrifice. In the evening he sat in an overcrowded beer-room, with his head in his hands, and wagged his head at his solitary glass from time to time, as if he now understood the ways of destiny.
What was he to do against the masterly manner in which Mahlmann accepted his loans? On Sunday the Mecklenburger had brought a bouquet for Agnes, though Diederich, who came with empty hands, might have said: "That is really from me." Instead of that he was silent, and was more incensed against Agnes than against Mahlmann. The latter commanded his admiration when he ran at night after some passer-by and knocked in his hat—although Diederich was by no means blind to the warning which this procedure contained for himself.
At the end of the month he received for his birthday an unexpected sum of money which his mother had saved up for him, and he arrived at Göppel's with a bouquet, not so large as to give himself away, or to challenge Mahlmann. As she took it the girl's face wore an embarrassed expression, and Diederich's smile was both shy and condescending. That Sunday seemed to him unusually gay and the proposal that they should go to the Zoological Gardens did not surprise him.
The company set out, after Mahlmann had counted them: Eleven persons. Like Göppel's sisters, all the women they met were dressed quite differently than on week-days, as if they belonged to-day to a higher class, or had come into a legacy. The men wore frock coats, only a few with dark trousers like Diederich, but many had straw hats. The side streets were broad, uniform and empty, not a soul was to be seen, nor any of the usual refuse. In one, however, a group of little girls in white dresses, and black stockings, bedecked with ribbons were singing shrilly and dancing in a ring. Immediately afterwards, in the main thoroughfare, they came on perspiring matrons storming a bus, and the faces of the shop assistants, who struggled