"I shall take good care not to say anything more, if the first word puts you into such a state."
"I am not in any state," said Cloten; and to prove it, he dashed his glass upon the table, so that the foot broke to pieces and the wine flooded the marble top.
"You are a queer fellow," said Barnewitz. "Wait till you have cause to get angry. What does it amount to? They say that you are not exactly Darby and Joan; that your wife has her own way; that you quarrel occasionally so that the servants hear it in the kitchen, and the like."
"Who says so?"
"The whole world!"
"And you believe it?"
Barnewitz shrugged his shoulders.
"I shouldn't like to hurt your feelings, Arthur; but I cannot deny it that the way your wife acts looks very suspicious to me. I should not wonder, and no one in our circle would wonder, if she had some little liaison, and I rather think I know the person."
"I insist upon it that you tell me all you know," said Cloten, with great pathos.
"Do you recollect the party at my house last summer? But of course you do, for we came near killing each other on that occasion. Ha, ha, ha! Well, on that evening already your wife began to flirt with that confounded fool--that Doctor Stein--in a way which struck everybody, and me too. But I had totally forgotten the whole affair till I was reminded of it yesterday. You recollect I had left Stilow's because, to tell the truth, the wine was too bad, and I was very thirsty. I found in my way to the city cellars, where the company is low enough but the wine excellent. There were a dozen people--authors, actors, and such stuff--sitting round a table and drinking; among them our old friend Timm the surveyor, who talked very big. I sat down at some distance, ordered a few dozen oysters and a bottle of champagne, and listened, because I could not help listening. They talked, heaven knows what stuff. I did not understand a word, and was just thinking what a lot of sheep they all were, and my eyes were beginning to be heavy, when I suddenly heard somebody mention your name, or rather your wife's name. Of course, I was wide awake in a moment. 'Who is she?' asked somebody. 'A wonderful creature,' said Timm. 'Well, and friend Stein is in love with her.' 'That's it!' 'What a fellow--that man Stein!' 'How did he get hold of her?' 'Oh, that is a long story!' said Timm; and then they put their heads together and talked so low that I could not hear the rest. At all events they laughed like madmen, and I had a great mind to pitch a few bottles at their heads."