My wish and my hope to be allowed to keep out of sight during the family conference, were to be frustrated in the most singular manner. I was appointed to play a part, and no insignificant one, in the family drama.
The guests had arrived, and were comfortably accommodated in the superintendent's not very roomy house. In the evening all had met at the table. Doctor Snellius also being present. Early the next morning he came to me, to disburden his full heart.
The worthy doctor was under considerable excitement. I perceived that at his first word, which was pitched a full third higher than usual.
"I knew it," he said. "It was perfect idiotcy to invite this swarm of locusts; they will utterly devour my poor Humanus, who has not so many green leaves left. What sort of a company is this? You have not told me a hundredth part of the evil that even a lamb-like disposition such as mine can, and must, and will say of these people. People! It is scandalous how we misuse that word. Why people? Because they go upon two legs? Then the revolting creatures that Gulliver saw in the land of the noble horses, were people too. But the English skeptic knew better, and called them Yahoos. And such are our dear guests, or there is no such thing as natural history. The commerzienrath with his great paunch, and his cunning, blinking eyes, is one. I could but look at his short clumsy fingers; I believe the fellow has worn them off handling his gold. And the steuerrath is another, though he makes desperate efforts to appear a human being. He has long fingers, very long; but does a human being ever twist such long fingers about in that fashion, curve his back with such a cat-like pliancy, and wear such a white, smooth, smiling, false thief's face? As for the gracious born Baroness Kippenreiter, any one will believe at her first word that she has held a high place in the republic of those fascinating creatures, and only came to Europe by the last ship. She cannot deny her nature; her Yahoo origin grins unmistakably from her long yellow teeth. Hm, hm, hm!"
"And Fräulein Duff?" I asked.
"Duff?" cried he--"Who is Fräulein Duff?"
"The governess of the little Hermine."
"Of the little beauty whom I was called to attend? Her name is Fräulein Duff? A very good name! Might be Duft [perfume], and would then be still more suitable. Mignonnette blooming in pots, and dried between flannel-jackets in a bureau-drawer; faded ribbons, tarnished leaves of albums, and a little ring of gold which did not even snap when the faithless lover deserted his Elvira. Is not her name Elvira? It must be. Amalie, you say? Certainly an error of the press; nothing about her to remind one of The Robbers--unless it be her long, languishing ringlets, which assuredly are stolen."
"Why were you called into the little girl?"
"She had eaten too many apple-tarts on the road. As if such a thing could hurt a little millionairess! Oh, if it had been black bread, now! I said so to the sorrowing father. 'In all her life she never tasted a crumb of black bread,' the monster replied, patting his protuberant paunch. 'Who never ate his bread with weeping,' sighed the governess, and added, 'that is an eternal truth.' The deuce only knows what she meant."