He looked around the walls, sighed, passed his hand through his hair, seemingly endeavoring to avoid her glance.
"You have not the smallest foot in the world," said the girl, looking at his coarse boots with the eye of an connoisseur. "If it were only as long in proportion as it's wide. But it's so short beyond the instep, it would be hard—"
"Won't it? Two elephants' feet!" said the printer laughing bitterly. "We men of the people, who don't tread as often as we're trodden upon, didn't need to have such big feet. But it's no matter. Who knows when our turn will come. Well, Fräulein Reginchen, if you can't—"
"Wait," she exclaimed, starting up and opening the show window, "I think I can find something for you; that is, if you can use jack-boots. But as you're going to sea—"
—"At least through fire and water.—Show me the jack-boots, Fraulein Reginchen."
He sat down on a low stool and watched her, as she nimbly leaned forward into the show window, dislodged with considerable difficulty two huge boots paraded there as models, and placed them in the shop. During this operation he again sighed, as if suffering. While, assisted by Reginchen, he tried on the boots, which fitted admirably, that is were much too large, he did not utter a syllable; but when with his feet cased in the huge polished coverings he stood before her as if rooted to the floor, he drew out his blue checked pocket handkerchief, wiped his forehead, and slowly replacing it, said: "Ask your father to send me the bill with the old boots. And now, Fraulein Reginchen, one thing more: take care of my friends up stairs as before—especially Balder. He—perhaps you don't know it—won't live to be very old; at least while he is here, let him know only love and kindness—"
He turned away because his voice failed, and furtively wiped his eyes with his cap.
"Good Heavens!" cried the young girl in terror, "what are you saying? Herr Walter—"
"Hush!" replied Franzelius putting his broad fore-finger on his lip. "You're a kind hearted, sensible girl—you'll keep it to yourself Oh! Fraulein Reginchen, if it were not for that, if it were not for many things—of which you have no suspicion—Heaven knows I—I would make no secret of my feelings, and tell you—but no! Love him, Reginchen, as much as you can. Will it be hard for you to love Balder?"
Again she made no reply. The question seemed to her a dangerous one. He was looking at her with a strange expression of anxiety and love; suddenly he caught both her hands in his huge palm, clasped them so closely that she with difficulty restrained a cry of terror, and burst forth: "If there is such a thing as an angel, you are one. Farewell. Think—forget—you have never had a better friend than I! I only wanted to bid you farewell—Fraulein Reginchen!"
He tore himself away and tramped out of the shop in his gigantic boots as hastily as if he feared to remain longer, lest spite of these firm pillars, he might lose his centre of gravity and fall at the feet of the shoemaker's little daughter.
Reginchen looked after him through the show window. Often as she had laughed at him, she could not do so to-day, she was much more ready to cry. No one had ever spoken to her so before. She had longed perceived that he liked her, and even prided herself a little upon that fact, because she thought he must be unusually learned, as he was always occupied in printing. But that he "revered" her, that he thought her almost an angel—! And what did he mean in speaking so about Herr Walter?
She sat down again in her chair in the corner. "I'll commence to-night to knit a pair of stockings for him to take on his journey," she thought. "If only I can get them done! His feet are so awfully big."
CHAPTER IV.
––––––––
ABOUT THE SAME HOUR Lorinser was sitting on the little leather sofa in Christiane's room, with his knees half drawn up on the seat, and his long arms stretched along the back, like a person who is making himself comfortable, because he does not intend to go very soon. Although it was already so dark that faces could scarcely be distinguished, no lamp stood on the little table. But from one of the windows in the front of the house gleamed a faint light, which frequently moved and fell upon the pale face of the man on the sofa, revealing the expression of eager expectation stamped upon the strongly marked features. Whenever the light flitted over Lorinser's countenance, the strange smile appeared on the mobile lips, and he lowered the eyes, which so long as it remained dark, followed every movement of the woman who, with her arms folded across her breast as usual, was pacing up and down the room.
Suddenly she paused at the window, opened it a moment gasping for breath, and then turned toward the silent man on the sofa.
"How people forget the flight of time when they are talking," she said. "I see it has grown dark. Excuse me, Herr Candidat, my hours are so regularly apportioned—"
"You wish to send me away, Fräulein Christiane," he said making no preparation to move from his comfortable position. "I have really forgotten the true cause of my visit, in your musical revelations, which have afforded me a glimpse of depths hitherto unsuspected. So what answer can I give the baroness?"
"Is any positive answer required?" she said. "Why should I have told you how I prize music, except to explain that I will never become a drawing room teacher, that I would rather starve than share in the universal sin of the jingling, bungling profanation of what I hold sacred?"
"And yet you do not disdain to give lessons to a soubrette?"
"How do you know?"
"Because—well, because I've enquired about you. I must be able to answer for a person whom I recommend to houses like that of the baroness."
"Very well. I will tell you why I take this frivolous creature; from a motive which will be perfectly obvious to you, as you too are interested in home missions:—to save a soul."
"You want to transform this stage princess, who has already passed through so many hands, into a saint? You're jesting."
Christiane laughed, a short, hollow laugh, utterly destitute of mirth.
"What do you take me for?" she asked. "To make a person something which I myself neither am nor desire to be! And what has her mode of life to do with me? I'm willing to allow everybody to be happy in their own way. What I call saving her soul, is giving her an idea of true music. The girl has the most enviable talents, voice, ear, passion, the genuine, the natural musical sympathy, which in all such compositions instantly opens to her the real meaning of the author or the part, so that she not only repeats the notes, but reproduces the whole meaning to the life. This is rare, even among those who consider themselves great artists, and are paid as such. And that's why this stage princess as you choose to call her, is too high for Offenbach, and, indeed, perfectly capable of interpreting Mozart and the other great masters."
"And if you succeed, do you really believe that this rescued soul will be made any happier?"
"Who can tell? I merely do what lies in my power. Happy! If music alone could give happiness, few would possess such joy as mine. But it's only a substitute, perhaps the most powerful and noble, but not the real thing, not happiness itself. Of that I'm perfectly sure; I've had time to experience it."
"And what do you consider real happiness?"
She was silent a moment, not as if it were difficult to answer, but as if considering whether she owed the questioner any reply.
Then in a tone of cold resignation she said suddenly:
"Real happiness? I only know because I have never tasted it. Real happiness can be nothing but to sacrifice ourselves without losing ourselves, because we find ourselves again in something better than we are; to forget self in another, without fear of being ashamed of it, because that other at the same moment is thinking only of what we ourselves forget. You'll not understand me, and no matter if you don't.