Dance followed dance. The violins screamed, the bass growled. The faces of the dancers began to look heated; the ladies used their fans vehemently, and the servants, who continually went around with large waiters of refreshments, saw them disappear more and more rapidly--but there was no real enjoyment, and it seemed as if a cloud were resting on the whole company.
"What on earth can be the matter to-night?" said young Grieben, wiping his forehead during one of the pauses, and addressing a group of dancers who stood in the very centre of the room; "we work ourselves to death and nothing comes of it; there is no en train in the matter."
"Well, you can dance a long time before your long legs are tired," said young Sylow; "but you are right; I have drunk a couple of bottles, and yet the more I drink the sadder I become."
"That is exactly my case," said a third; "I do not know what it can be, but the ball at Barnewitz was a good deal merrier."
"What it can be?" said Breesen. "Well, I should think that was clear enough. The old baron looks like a wet chicken in the rain; the old baroness like a dethroned Hecuba--isn't it Hecuba? Felix quarrels with everybody who comes near him, and Miss Helen has not said three words all the evening. And you expect people to enjoy themselves? I feel as if it were a funeral."
"Well, there is a sick man at all events," said Pluggen; "the old baron just told me: Bruno has been sick in bed since yesterday."
"Ah, I suppose that is the reason why Doctor Stein has not come down?" said Count Grieben; "I thought he was correcting exercises, perhaps, and would come down after a while, ha, ha, ha!"
"Hush, Grieben," said Hans Pluggen; "the other day you spoke very differently about the doctor."
"I said he was a consummate fool, whom I would enlighten on the subject of his position, and I say so again."
"Why, that is word for word what Felix was saying just now; the doctor seems to be a great favorite with the gentlemen."