Again Laura's figure rose before his eyes, and he laughed right heartily at the Martinmas goose. This also was an old edition of which there was no record. This time he selected an ode to Spring from his poems and addressed it, as directed, to O. W.
The Professor was astonished that the Doctor kept silence about the book of ballads, and expressed this to Ilse, who was partly in the secret.
"He is bound not to speak," she said; "she treats him badly. But as it is he, there is no danger in the joke for the bold girl."
But Laura was happy in her game of chess with masked moves. She put the Doctor's poem carefully into her private album, and she thought that the Hahn poetry was not so bad after all; nay, it was admirable. But even more gratifying to her sportiveness than the correspondence, was the thought that the Doctor was to be forced into a little affair of sentiment with the actress. When she met him again at Ilse's, and one of those present was extolling the talent of the young lady, she spoke without embarrassment, and without turning to the Doctor, of the curious whims of the actress, that once, when an admirer, whom she did not like, had proposed to serenade her, she had placed her little dog at the window with a night-cap on, and that she had a decided preference for the company of strolling apprentices, and could converse with them in the most masterly way in the dialect of her province.
The unsuspecting Doctor began to reflect. Was it then really the actress who, without his knowing it, was in correspondence with him?
This gave Fritz a certain tacit respect for the lady.
Once when Laura was sitting with her mother at the play watching the actress, she perceived Fritz Hahn in the box opposite. She observed that he was looking fixedly through his opera-glass at the stage, and sometimes broke out in loud applause. She had evidently succeeded in putting him upon the wrong track.
Meanwhile he discovered that the unknown correspondent knew more than how to write addresses. Laura had looked through the songs and studied the text of the old poem of the Knight Tanhäuser, who had lingered with Venus in the mountain, and she sent the ballad with the following lines:--
"While reading through this song I was overcome with emotion and horror at the meaning of the old poetry. What, in the opinion of the poet, became of the soul of poor Tanhäuser? He had broken away from Venus, and had returned penitent to the Christian faith; and when the stern Pope said to him, 'It is as little possible for you to be saved as for the staff that I hold in my hand to turn green,' he returned to Venus and her mountain in proud despair. But afterwards the staff in the hands of the Pope did turn green, and it was in vain that he sent his messengers to fetch the knight back. What was the singer's view of Tanhäuser's return to evil? Would the 'Eternal love and mercy' still forgive the poor man, although he had for the second time surrendered himself up to the temptress? Was the old poet so liberal-minded that he considered the return to the heathen woman as pardonable? Or is Tanhäuser now, in his eyes, eternally lost? and was the green staff only to show that the Pope was to bear the blame? I should be glad to hear your explanation of this. I think the poem very beautiful and touching, and, when one thoroughly enters into its spirit, there is powerful poetry in the simple words. But I feel much disturbed about the fate of Tanhäuser. Your N. N."
The Doctor answered immediately: