The official dwelling of the rector of the college, Doctor Moritz Clemens, was shining to-night in unwonted splendor. They had not only removed the covers from all the sofas, sofa-cushions, and chairs, in the best room and the sitting-room, so that the luxurious light of two lamps and half a dozen stearine candles poured in floods over the displayed magnificence; but even the rector's study, on one side, and the sitting-room and chamber of the two daughters, on the other side, had been changed into salons by removing the writing-table in the one, and the beds in the other, while each was lighted up with a lamp and three candles. The aromatic fragrance which always rises when incense is strewn on the hot-plate of the stove, perfumed all the rooms, and sufficed in itself to produce a festive excitement in every well-regulated mind.
The Clemens family is in grand gala, and awaits the guests who are to come. The Clemens family consists of four persons: father, mother, and two grown daughters. Rector Clemens is a man of fifty years, who must have been very handsome in his youth, and who may still pass for very good-looking. He wears his curly brown hair very long, and, contrary to all fashion, his collar turned down à la Byron over a loosely-tied handkerchief, which gives him, in connection with a somewhat vague softness of his features, an ideal, not to say an effeminate expression. He is fully conscious of the soft character of his appearance, and does all he can to heighten the effect. His speech is soft, his voice is soft, his movements are soft. "I am called Clemens, and I try to do honor to my name," he is accustomed to say, modestly, whenever anybody compliments him on the "perfect humanity" of his manner and his appearance. "Humanity" is his pet word. The learned world knows him as the author of a moral philosophical work "Purification of Man towards Perfect Humanity;" and the public at large through his dramatic poem, "John at Patmos," which has appeared in a second edition in the bookstores of the University of Grunwald, and bears the motto, "Homo sum, nihil humani mihi alienum puto."
Mrs. Rector Clemens is, at least in her outward appearance, a perfect contrast to her husband. Her figure rises far beyond the ordinary size, and is broad and strong. The features of her face are proportionately heavy and massive; her voice is a tolerably deep bass, and her movements and manners remind you forcibly of a vessel rolling in a trough of the sea. She is indeed the daughter of a captain of a mail steamer, and has made in her young days twice the voyage to the Indies. It is hard to understand why her etherealizing husband with his enthusiasm for Hogarth's line of beauty, should have chosen her above all others, and the only explanation is to be found in that mysterious affinity which unites the strong and the weak, the stern and the gentle. The contrast between the two characters, however, does not appear quite so striking upon closer observation. The husband has succeeded in lending short wings to the somewhat clumsy psyche of his wife. He has talked to her so much about true humanity, that she is determined to become æsthetic in spite of her colossal size, and to be refined in spite of her defective education. She reads a good deal, although she does not understand it all; and she is the founder and manager of a dramatic club, although she has never been able to distinguish very clearly between a dative and an accusative.
The two Misses Clemens are eighteen and nineteen years old, and enjoy the beautiful old German names of Thusnelda and Fredegunda. The latter resembles her mother, Thusnelda her father, but the difference in character, which the common longing after humanity has nearly effaced in the parents, is still very perceptible in the daughters. They quarrel very frequently, are almost always of different opinions, and resemble each other only in one point--the very high opinion they entertain of themselves.
"It seems to me our dear guests keep us waiting rather long," said Rector Clemens, looking at his watch for the twelfth time in the last twelve minutes, as he nervously walked up and down in the room.
"I cannot comprehend why the good people don't come," said Mrs. Rector Clemens, sitting down for a moment on the sofa and wiping her heated brow with her handkerchief. "I had asked Doctor Stein expressly to be sure to come before seven, because I wanted to read his part over with him."
"Will he be able to read the Captain?" said Miss Fredegunda Clemens from the adjoining room, where she was busy with her dress before a mirror.
"He'll read it at least as well as Broadfoot," replied Miss Thusnelda in an irritated tone.
"But, children, surely you are not going to quarrel now," said the mother, trying to appease them.
"Fredegunda cannot stop teasing me," said Thusnelda.