CHAPTER V.
They had scarcely landed at the end of the lake when they saw in the distance the three figures they were looking for, strolling slowly along the road that circled the shore. When within hailing distance, the prearranged farce of a chance meeting and recognition was played with the utmost seriousness, and it was impossible to detect, from the godmother's manner, whether she had accepted a rôle in the comedy, or whether she innocently believed that the two gentlemen who lived opposite the sisters in the city had merely seized this opportunity to exchange a word or two with their lovely neighbors for the first time. The girls bore themselves in accordance with their respective characters--the elder quiet and sparing of words, the younger gay and coquettish even to audacity. They were dressed charmingly, and indeed almost elegantly; but Fanny wore dark ribbons, while Nanny's little hat was adorned with a red rose and trimmings of the same color. The battle-painter had warned the good Kohle at the dinner-table against the godmother, as a pious creature, enthusiastic about art and notorious for enticing into her net innocent young painters of a serious turn of mind. But she was, in fact, a pleasant little soul enough, far on in the thirties. She had lost her husband, a well-to-do confectioner, shortly after their marriage, and was fond of protesting, with many sighs, that she never, never could forget him. A Gothic temple, made of sugar and adorned with numerous figures of saints, which he had made for their marriage, as a sort of triumph of his art, still stood in a state of good preservation under a glass case upon her sideboard. Nevertheless rumor said of her that she had not always harshly repulsed the numerous offers she had received as a widow, though she had been too wise to give the slightest cause for public gossip. Certain ecclesiastical gentlemen, who were in the habit of going in and out of her house, gave her the best certificate of character; and though she did not close her door to young artists, she took care to see that they were proper, respectable people, who painted church pictures with long robes, and did not wear their shirt-collars after the fashion of too erratic genius; and that they held aloof from all pagan theories of art. To this godly way of life she owed it that her own godmother, the glove-maker's wife, had trusted her with "the children" for a day, although some malicious people pretended to think that to go gadding into the country was not exactly the thing for well-preserved widows.
She was quite modestly dressed, but yet in such a way that her figure, already somewhat inclined to embonpoint, was shown to the best advantage. In her manner she kept a wise mean between the severe dignity which a God-fearing woman of an uncertain age usually maintains toward youthful giddiness, and a too free approval of the pranks that danced through her godchild's head. At the same time she did not try to keep the silent Felix from knowing that his slim, manly form had made an impression on her; though she was wise enough to do it so slyly as to give a motherly sort of aspect to her interest in him. It was only when the ungrateful man, whose poor soul was quite unconscious of its conquest, continued to walk at her side in complacent abstraction, casting furtive glances all around to see whether he was running directly in the way of her whom he must especially avoid--then only did she withdraw her favor from him and bestow it upon the insignificant Kohle, whom Rosenbusch had introduced to her as a painter of the severest style, a disciple of the great Cornelius, and one whom she needed only to make a better Christian in order to win in him a new pillar of ecclesiastical art. Kohle submitted to it all with a most patient smile, and really began to pay pronounced attention to this stately creature as well as he knew how, merely that he might not seem to stand in the way of the others' sport.
They had been strolling up and down the shore for about a quarter of an hour in this way, when, as if without the slightest premeditation, the proposal was made that they should take an excursion on the water; a proposal which was accepted after a good deal of well-acted hesitation on the part of the godmother, and much entreating and flattering and coaxing on the part of the blonde Nanny.
Soon afterward the boat, with its merry freight, shot out upon the sunny lake, rowed now by Felix, who had had occasion to exercise this noble art on many waters of the Old World and the New. Kohle sat at the tiller and thought only of his dame Venus, notwithstanding the nearness of the beautiful art-enthusiast who was opposite him. The two pairs of lovers occupied the middle seats, Elfinger gazing devotedly on the lovely face of his neighbor, who let her little white hand trail through the green water, and seemed to-day to enjoy the beauty of this world with all her heart. She held a large sunshade over her head in such a way that her companion might also profit by its shade; the first favor she had ever bestowed upon him, and one which made its modest recipient very happy. Her vivacious sister, on the other hand, maintained that Rosenbusch's great hat was really a family straw-hat, and could afford protection against sunstroke to a whole ship's crew. She freely exposed her laughing face to the sun, bound a white handkerchief to her sunshade, which she planted like a flagstaff between herself and her adorer, and declared that she was looking forward with great pleasure to the storm which was undoubtedly about to burst forth and bury them all in the depths of the lake, with the exception of those who could swim--swimming being a great passion of her own. She also offered to save one of the others, only it must not be Rosenbusch, whose velvet coat was too heavy, and would certainly drag down its owner.
Aunt Babette--for this was the godmother's name--attempted now and then to give her a reproving glance. But, as no one took the slightest notice of this, she made up her mind to become young and worldly again herself, particularly as the heat made all restraint doubly burdensome. She unwound the lace shawl from her round shoulders, drew off her gloves and untied her ribbons, so that she looked in her négligé almost as young and certainly as full of life as the serious Fanny. She laughed even louder than the two girls at the jests and tricks which Rosenbusch displayed for their amusement. He was celebrated for his power of mimicking the whirring of a quail, the cackling of a hen, and the noise of a saw. He told long and ridiculous stories in different dialects, and delivered a sermon, with the most solemn pulpit utterance, in a senseless jargon which he gave out to be English. But his great masterpiece was a pantomimic scene representing nuns praying at their nightly devotions. To do this he bound a handkerchief round his head, and wrapped himself up in a lady's cloak so that only his eyes, the tip of his nose, and his hands-folded over his breast--were left visible, and then began with hypocritical zeal and constant change of expression to roll his eyes and nod his head and murmur over his rosary, now as an antiquated, dozing nun, who kept dropping off to sleep between her prayers; now as a deeply contrite and extravagantly penitent sinner, and again as a well-to-do sister, grown gray in the convent, who had long since learned to regard the matter from its practical side, and refrained from unnecessary exertion, but strove from time to time to keep up her spirits by taking a stolen pinch of snuff.
This amateur exhibition had worked so irresistibly that even the worthy godmother nearly lost her balance from laughter, and had to be supported by Kohle; and it was only when the show had come to an end that it seemed to strike the conscience of its mischievous author that he might possibly have offended Elfinger's devout fiancée by this absurd parody. Whereupon, assuming an air of mock contrition, he begged a thousand pardons of Fräulein Fanny, while in secret he reckoned it as a good work to have given her a foretaste of the joys that awaited her. Then, as if in penance for his offense, he suddenly began to play the "O Sanctissima" upon his flute, with such beauty and pathos that even the wild Nanny grew serious, and began to sing a gentle accompaniment, in which her sister joined.
It rang out sweetly over the lonely, brooding stillness of the lake, so that they did not end with this first song, but followed each other with their favorite airs.
Elfinger sang an excellent tenor, and took great pains to make his song strike home to the heart of his lovely neighbor. The two rowers alone were dumb, though they had drawn in their oars upon getting well out upon the water. Kohle had no more voice than a crow, and Felix felt as if his breast were encircled by the seven girdles of the legend.
As they floated along thus peacefully and quietly, a west wind sprung up, and carried them unnoticed toward the opposite shore, where a much-frequented garden-restaurant smiled on them from out the verdure of a gently-sloping bank. Elfinger proposed that they should land here and drink some coffee--a suggestion to which no one had an objection to offer. And while they drifted slowly toward the shore he closed the entertainment with a song which Rosenbusch had once written for one of their feasts in "Paradise." It went to the tune of a popular melody, and the author accompanied it skillfully on his flute.