"Professor Jager, an excellent scholar, and a friend of our house; Mrs. Jager, a lady whose poetical talent deserves encouragement."
The prince bowed to each one of the persons presented--even to the last-mentioned, which made quite a sensation--with the same dignity and courtesy, and gave the signal to sit down by choosing himself a seat by Anna Maria on an easy-chair.
During this long salutation those who had not known the prince before had an opportunity to study his outward appearance. His was a Herculean form, calculated to impress a professional boxer forcibly, and to create a sensation in a circus, dressed up as an athlete; but for ordinary life was, perhaps, a little too large. Upon the large, powerful body, whose height was in full harmony with the breadth of the shoulders and the magnificent chest, there was set a head more angular than round, covered all over with short, curling black hair, and firmly resting upon a neck which looked too short for the size of the head. The features of the face corresponded with the whole. The brow was low and straight, the eyes of bright darkness but small, and apparently still further reduced in size by the heavy eyelids with their dark lashes. The nose as well as the thick lips were somewhat protruding. A beard, thicker and blacker than the hair on the head, covered the cheeks and the upper lip. The chin alone, shaved smooth, in military style, was the energetic base of this energetic face. Taken all in all, the assertion made by Hortense that the prince looked like a Mongolian agreed as little with the reality as Emily's judgment that he was strikingly handsome. Nevertheless, the whole was a far too striking individuality and too full of character to be called plain, even if the strict rules of ideal beauty were not all observed. A physiognomist would in vain have looked for ideal qualities of any kind in the face of the prince, but he would have discovered, in return, a most energetic, powerful will; and, perhaps, if he had examined carefully, a boundless pride, which slept with open eyes behind the mask, like a lion behind the bars of his cage, and could be roused by a mere nothing.
The prince wore the simple uniform of the regiment in garrison in Grunwald, but the two decorations on his breast--a small cross set in diamonds, probably Russian; and the order of the Blue Falcon of the second class, with crossed swords--proved abundantly that he was a man whose importance was great, aside from epaulet and sword-knot.
Anna Maria treated her great guest with a distinction corresponding fully with this higher mystical importance, which was only revealed to the profane eye by the awe-inspiring sparkling of the diamonds. It was this that caused the modest silence into which Barnewitz and Cloten had fallen since his arrival; the coquetry with which Hortense and Clotilde tried to attract his attention, and the embarrassment of the author of the fragments and the poetess, who had a vague impression that they were more than superfluous in this most noble company, and yet did not dare to rise from their seats and to go away. The prince and the baroness at first kept up the conversation alone, until Hortense succeeded in wedging in a casual remark, expressed in excellent French, and thus to obtain the word to the great annoyance of Emily, who had to leave her adversary in the undisturbed enjoyment of this triumph, as she spoke French but imperfectly, and was hardly able to follow the rapid utterance of her rival. Hortense, who knew Emily's weak point, carried her malice so far as to turn round to her continually with a "qu'en dites--vous, chère amie? N'est ce pas, Emilie?" and to force her in this way to reply in a manner which might be clever in spirit but was very imperfect in form. Any one who could have noticed the intense delight with which Hortense enjoyed her triumph over her adversary would have been compelled to acknowledge that even malice has its moments of happiness. The delight, however, became almost too great to be borne, when at last the prince hardly noticed Emily any longer, and gave himself up entirely to the charm of Hortense's amusing conversation.
Emily, however, was far too frivolous and too bold to lose her good humor at once, because of such a momentary defeat. The prince was not to her taste, although she had before praised him in order to annoy her rival; and if he did not choose to speak German to her, as he had done the night before, he might leave it alone. Emily played with her beaux as a trifling child plays with its dolls; it was utterly indifferent to her whether she broke the head of one, or the other fell into the water; she felt it only when one of her favorite dolls and she had occasionally, for the sake of variety, one that she overwhelmed with caresses and kisses--was not willing to be tender to her and to return her affection. Oswald had been such a favorite, but cold, desperately cold doll for her. She might have married him and become his faithful wife if he had belonged to the same circles in which she lived--at least her fancy represented it to her as possible in dreamy hours--but now she was Baroness Cloten, and then--what did it matter to her? Was she not handsome and young, and ten times cleverer than her foolish husband with his everlasting "upon honor!" and "divine!" Why will foolish men marry clever and handsome young wives, especially when these wives have a fondness for fancies brighter than the dull gray of actual life? Are the wives to be blamed in such cases if they go their own way, which is sometimes so narrow and dark that virtue and honor, the faithful companions of good wives, are lost by the way?
Emily Cloten had been watching the whole time for an opportunity to enter into conversation with Mrs. Jager, who, she suspected, might be able to give her some news about Oswald, whom she had not seen again since the night before. She availed herself, therefore, of the favorable moment when the prince was speaking to the baroness and Hortense, and the baron to the reverend gentleman, in order to inquire of Primula about "that young man who was tutor at Grenwitz last summer--Fels, I think, or Rock, or Stein, or whatever his name was--since a friend of hers was in need of a teacher." Emily was not mistaken; Primula could give her all information about Mr. Stein--"not Fels, although he has a heart like the poet's hero, Felsenfest; not Rock, although he towers like a rock above all men"--as the enthusiastic poetess added warmly. He called nearly every day, she said (Oswald had been there once); he was like a member of the family, and as truly united with her in warm friendship as in their common aspirations. "Excelsior!" She did not think, however, Oswald would just now accept such a position, as he was "suffering in the dull bonds of a school," but she would mention to him the offer.
"Perhaps you had better not say anything," said Emily, after a short meditation. "You know Mr. Stein--how could I forget the name--did not leave our circle in perfect harmony. He might reject the offer at once, if it came to him in that way. Could you not--how shall we manage it?--yes! that's the way! Could you not arrange it so, my dear Mrs. Jager, that I should meet him at your house as if by mere chance? I have long since desired to see the table on which the author of the 'Cornflowers' composes her beautiful poems."
"You overwhelm me with your kindness," cried Primula. "I can only say with Zeus at the distribution of the gifts of the earth: if you really wish to enter my lowly hut, as often as you come it shall be open to you. Shall we say day after to-morrow, at seven?"
"That will suit me exactly," said Emily.