"This is a great delight!" thought Elise, as she wiped away a traitorous tear; "but I will keep a good face on it!"
The Candidate, who perceived all this, quickly withdrew from the lady's enchanted circle, in which he also had been involved, and taking "the baby" on his knee, began to relate a story which was calculated as much to interest the mother as the child. The children were soon around him: Petrea herself forsook her new flame to listen, and even Elise for the moment was so amused by it that she forgot everything else. That was precisely what Jacobi wanted, but it was not that which pleased the Judge. He rose for a moment, in order to hear what it was which had so riveted the attention of his wife.
"I cannot conceive," said he to her in a half-whisper, "how you can take delight in such absurdity; nor do I think it good for the children that they should be crammed with such nonsense!"
At length Emelie rose to take her leave, overwhelming Elise with a flood of polite speeches, which she was obliged to answer as well as she could, and the Judge, who had promised to show her the lions of the place, accompanied her; on which the rest of the guests dispersed themselves. The elder children accompanied the Candidate to the school-room to spend an hour in drawing; the younger went to play; Petrea wished to borrow Gabriele, who at the sight of a gingerbread heart could not resist, and as a reward received a bit of it; Elise retired to her own chamber.
Poor Elise! she dared not at this moment descend into her own heart; she felt a necessity to abstain from thought—a necessity entirely to forget herself and the troubling impressions with which to-day had overwhelmed her soul. A full hour was before her, an hour of undisturbed repose, and she hastened to her manuscript, in order to busy herself with those rich moments of life which her pen could call up at pleasure, and to forget the poor and weary present—in one word, to lose the lesser in the higher reality. The sense of suffering, of which the little annoyances of life gave her experience, made her alive to the sweet impressions of that beauty and that harmonious state of existence which was so dear to her soul.
She wrote and wrote and wrote, her heart was warm, her eyes filled with tears, the words glowed upon her page, life became bright, the moments flew. An hour and a half passed. Her husband's tea-time came; he had such delight in coming home at this hour to find his wife and his children all assembled round the tea-table in the family room. It very rarely happened that Elise had not all in readiness for him; but now the striking of seven o'clock roused her suddenly from her writing; she laid down her pen, and was in the act of rising when her husband entered.
A strong expression of displeasure diffused itself over his countenance as he saw her occupation.
"You gave us to-day a very bad dinner, Elise," said he, going up to her and speaking with severity; "but when this novel-writing occupies so much of your time, it is no wonder that you neglect your domestic duties; you get to care really just as little about these, as you trouble yourself about my wishes."
It would have been easy for Elise to excuse herself, and make all right and straight; but the severe tone in which her husband spoke, and his scornful glance, wounded her deeply. "You must have patience with me, Ernst," said she, not without pride and some degree of vexation; "I am not accustomed to renounce all innocent pleasures; my education, my earlier connexions, have not prepared me for this."
This was like pricking the Judge in the eye, and with more bitterness and severity than usual he replied: