One of the sisters now brought the hat which Hans Peter had got in mistake. Yes, it was certainly the father’s. Thus an exchange in the house, a little intermezzo, which naturally, from its insignificance, was momentarily forgotten by all except the parties concerned, for to them it was an important moment in their lives; and to us also, as we shall see, an event of importance, which has occasioned us to linger thus long in this circle. In an adjoining room will we, unseen spirits, watch the father and son. They are alone; the family is already in the theatre. We may, indeed, watch them—they are true moralists. It is only a moral drawn from a hat.
But the father’s eyes rolled, his cheeks glowed, his words were sword-strokes, and must make an impression on any disposition as gentle as his son’s; but the son stood quiet, with a firm look and with a smile on his lips, such as the moral bestows. “You were in the adjoining room!” said he. “Where it is proper for you to be there may I also come.”
“Boy!” cried the father, and named the place, but we know it not; neither know we its inhabitants. Victor Hugo includes them in his “Children’s Prayer,” in his beautiful poem, “La Prière pour Tous.” The child prays for all, even “for those who sell the sweet name of love.”
[Note: “Prie!... Pour les femmes échevelées Qui vendent
le doux nom d’amour!”]
“Let us be silent with each other!” said the son. “I am acquainted with many histories. I know another of the pretty Eva!”—
“Eva!” repeated the father.
We will hear no more! It is not proper to listen. We see the father and son extend their hands. It appeared a scene of reconciliation. They parted: the father goes to his business, and Hans Peter to the theatre, to anger himself over the immorality in the second act of the “Somnambule.”
CHAPTER XXIV
“L’amour est pour les coeurs,
Ce que l’aurore est pour les fleurs,
Et le printemps pour la nature.”—VIGUE.
“Love is a childish disease and like the small-pox. Some
die, some become deformed, others are more or less scarred,
while upon others the disease does not leave any visible
trace.”—The Alchemist, by C. HAUCH.