Villa Eden: The Country-House on the Rhine

by Berthold Auerbach

"Your dear child has developed finely, and she speaks very good French."

"Thank you," said the mother. "I don't know much of the young people of the present day; but Lina is still so slow, there's nothing piquant about her, and she is frightfully simple. Just think, the child has formed a fancy—how she ever got hold of such ideas in the convent, is a mystery to me—but only imagine, she believes that this Herr Captain Dournay has forced himself in as Roland's tutor, only because he is secretly in love with Fräulein Manna, whom he saw at the convent."

Frau Bella pretended much surprise, and heard the story of the meeting with Eric again, but the Justice's wife soon led the conversation back to the failure of all her efforts to make Lina a wide-awake girl.

Frau Bella might have said to her, if she had been disposed, You want to change this child, who has no special talent or beauty, from her genuineness and openness; you are continually teasing her to be lively, arch, and merry, to sing and to jump! You want to turn your fair-complexioned daughter with clear, light-blue eyes, into a dark-haired maiden with flashing brown eyes! Frau Bella might have said all this, but she did not. She pressed her thin lips close together; her nostrils quivered; she despised, at this moment, the whole of mankind. She was spared the necessity of saying anything, however, for the ladies who were invited came in successively. They were particularly glad to meet the Countess Wolfsgarten, and yet every one was a little vexed that she could not be the first in dress and appearance.

Ah, such a coffee-party of the fair sex!

There are some things, institutions, and arrangements, that have received a bad name, and cannot get rid of it again; this is the case with this fine institution of coffee-drinking. As soon as any favorable mention is made of it, every hearer and reader is convinced that is only downright irony, or a good-humored jest; for it has been settled, once for all, that this coffee-drinking of the ladies is only a hoax, and a pretence of kindly intercourse, with the participants. And yet this institution is a very excellent one, except when cards are introduced, and they carry it so far as to get up a regular gambling-party, as do the ladies at the small capitals, who have a handsome book with black morocco-binding, lettered on the back, "Hours of Meditation," but containing, inside, only blank leaves on which to mark down the points, and to enter the score. But that is only in the smaller capitals; here in our sociable little town, civilization has not advanced so far. Cards are not yet the book of salvation from all the evil of ennui; here they rely upon their own resources, the best way they can. And why should they not talk of persons, and occasionally say something pretty severe? What do other people, yes, even the men, in higher spheres, and at the tankard? Do they converse always about abstractions?

To be sure, there is talk here of town news, and whoever takes no part in this, holding himself aloof, does nothing for the town, nothing for his neighbor. And these ladies, who here have something to say about the so-called higher dignitaries, as well as the so-called inferior people, they are the same ladies who have established benevolent reunions, and behave in a strictly proper manner. So let us be pleasant and well-disposed guests, without any tendency to find fault, at this coffee-drinking of the fair sex.

Here comes Frau White. She is called Frau Coal behind her back, for she is the wife of a wood and coal-dealer. She has black locks and a dark complexion, which looks as if she had never washed herself thoroughly; and since the good woman is aware of her being nicknamed Mrs. Coal, she always dresses herself in dead-white colors, which are not very becoming to her dark hair and complexion by bright daylight, but by lamp-light she is very charming to look at. Unfortunately she has the defect of squinting, and with so sweet an expression, as if her eyes had been permanently arrested in the midst of a killingly affectionate glance.

Here is the wife of the cement-manufacturer, a tall and stately woman, never laughing, always inexpressibly serious, as if she carried about with her some great secret; she has no secret to impart, except that she has nothing to say.

Here sits the handsome wife of the school-director, a little too portly perhaps, nicknamed the Lay-figure because she is always dressed so finely; she has a perpetual smile upon her face, and one might almost imagine that she would still smile and show her beautiful teeth, even if she were to be the bearer or hearer of the tidings of death.