He was enraged; he got up, slammed the lid of the piano, took his hat and top coat, left the house, and went out to see his friend in the suburbs.
When he returned that night, he saw Dorothea standing in the door with a man. It was the actor, Edmund Hahn. They were carrying on a heated conversation in whispers. The man was holding Dorothea by the arm, but when Döderlein became visible from the unlighted street, he uttered an ugly oath and quickly disappeared.
Dorothea looked her father straight, and impudently, in the face, and followed him into the dark house.
When they were upstairs and had lighted the lamp, Döderlein turned to her, and asked her threateningly: “What do you mean by these immodest associations? Tell me! I want an answer!”
“I don’t want to marry your flour sack. That’s my answer,” said Dorothea, with a defiant toss of her head.
“Well, we’ll see,” said Döderlein, pale with rage and ploughing through his hair with his fingers, “we’ll see. Get out of here! I have no desire to lose my well-earned sleep on account of such an ungrateful hussy. We’ll take up the subject again to-morrow morning.”
The next morning Dorothea hastened to Herr Carovius. “Uncle,” she stammered, “he wants to marry me to that flour sack.”
“Yes? Well, I suppose I’ll have to visit that second-rate musician in his studio again and give him a piece of my mind. In the meantime be calm, my child, be calm,” said he, stroking her brown hair, “Old Carovius is still alive.”
Dorothea nestled up to him, and smiled: “What would you say, Uncle,” she began with a knavish and at the same time unusually attentive expression in her face, “if I were to marry Daniel Nothafft? You like him,” she continued in a flattering tone, and held him fast by the shoulder when he started back, “you like him, I know you do. I must marry somebody; for I do not wish to be an old maid, and I can’t stand Father any longer.”