"So she's gone!" he muttered. Well, it was no use being too tragic over it. Either Lisbeth would be reasonable again, or----he was free of her.
There was a third possibility.
Countess Miramara had assured him that he could make an enormous fortune if he would go on the stage as a cornet-player. To-morrow she was going off to Bohemia. Suppose he were to join her? He did not trouble himself about desertion: he had got his papers all right, and desertion was not a crime for which one could be extradited. Austria was a big place and a merry; so the countess asserted. And there was Hungary too.
Really that would be the best thing to do.
Next day Henke was over the border. He had already converted all his property into gold, and only took his trumpet with him. In place of his artilleryman's coat he wore a gorgeous fancy uniform, which showed off to the best advantage the excellences of his person. Evening after evening he performed his most admired pieces.
And he became a favourite with all the ladies.
Frau Lisbeth, however, obtained the dissolution of her marriage on the ground of malicious desertion.
At first she thought of furnishing a little shop in the town and setting up a laundry; but Trautvetter begged her rather to go into service for a time.
"Why?" asked she.
He found some difficulty in answering her. At last he came out with: