"Krischan, you know I don't like fast driving; but drive fast to-night! We must be in Rahnstadt in half an hour. Else they will have gone to bed," she added to the young Frau.
The little assessor had just gone home from the Frau Pastorin's, Habermann and Bräsig had said "Good-night!" and gone up-stairs, and Bräsig opened the window and looked out, to observe the weather: "Karl," said he, "what a fragrance there is after the storm! The whole air is full of atmosphere." Just then a carriage stopped at the Frau Pastorin's, and the light from the house shone directly upon it. "Preserve us!" cried Bräsig. "Karl, there are your sister and Mining, at this time of night!"
"Can any misfortune have happened!" exclaimed Habermann, snatching the candle, and running down to the door.
"Sister," he asked hastily, as Frau Nüssler met him at the foot of the stairs, "why have you come here, in the night? Mining,"--but he stopped abruptly,--"gracious Frau! You here, at this time?"
"Karl, quick!" said Frau Nüssler, "the gracious Frau wishes to speak with you alone. Make haste, before the others come!"
Habermann opened the Frau Pastorin's best room, and led the young Frau in; he followed her, just catching, as he shut the door, the beginning of Bräsig's speech, on the stairs:
"May you keep the nose on your face! What have you come here for? Excuse me, for coming down in my shirt sleeves; Karl very inconsiderately took away the light, and I couldn't find my coat, in the dark. But where is he, and where is Mining?"
Frau Nüssler was not obliged to answer these questions, for Louise came out of the Frau Pastorin's room with a light.
"Bless me! aunt!"
"Louise, come in here, and you, Bräsig, put your coat on, and come down to the Frau Pastorin's room!" They did so, and Frau Pastorin came in also, and the hall was left empty and still, and if one had put his ear to the door on the right, he would have heard the honest, touching confession, which the young Frau, at first with embarrassment and bitter tears, but afterwards with entire confidence and secret hope in her heart, poured out to the old inspector; and if he had listened at the door on the left, he would have heard the most frightful lying from Frau Nüssler, for it had occurred to the good lady that, since they had taken the gracious Frau for Mining, she might as well pass for Mining, till she had finished her business, so that they need not torment her with questions, and so she told them that Mining had a dreadful toothache, and that her brother Karl knew of a remedy, a sort of magnetism, which must be applied between twelve and one o'clock at night, in perfect silence; and Frau Pastorin said she thought that was an unchristian proceeding, and Bräsig remarked, "I never knew that Karl had any taste for magnetism and doctoring." And after a little, Habermann put his head in at the door, and said, "Frau Pastorin, leave the door unlocked, I have an errand out, but I shall be back soon," and before Frau Pastorin could say a word, he was gone, and he went to the street where Moses lived.