“I shall always be delighted to come whenever there’s the slightest thing the matter with you two charming people.”
Lenette answered, “Oh yes, do come very often.”
And Siebenkæs added, “The oftener the better.”
And yet, when he had gone, the ring seemed to be not quite so comfortable again, and medical students who may be working at psychology may be a little surprised that during supper the advocate said very little to his wife, and she very little to him. The reason was that he had Leibgeber’s letter lying by his plate in the place where the bread normally is, and the image of his beloved friend shone bright before his mental vision from Bayreuth all athwart the far misty darkness between—their first happy meeting to come floated magically before him. Hope shot down a pure clearing ray into the dark mephitic cave where he was panting and toiling now—and the coming spring stood like some cathedral tower all hung with lamps lofty and bright in the distance, beaming through the dark night sky.
At length he “came to himself,” i. e. to his wife; the strong image of Leibgeber had buoyed him up from the sharp stones which strewed the present; the dear old friend, who had clipped out the bride’s profile up in the choir on the wedding-day, and been with them in the early weeks of their honeymoon, seemed to fling a chain of flower-wreaths about him and draw him closer to the silent form by his side. “Well darling, and how are you getting on?” he said, awaking from his reverie and taking her hand, now that all was peace again between them. She had, however, the feminine peculiarity or foible, habit at all events, of being much quicker to show that she was vexed than that her anger was over; of, at all events, being slow to show the latter; and of commencing a reconsideration of all the matters in dispute at the very moment that amends have been made and accepted, and pardon begged and granted. There are very few married women indeed who will put their hand into their husbands’, and say “There, I’m good again,” without a very considerable hesitation and delay; unmarried women are much more ready to do it. Wendeline did hold hers out, but did it too coldly, and drew it away again in a great hurry, to take up the table-cloth, which she asked him to help her to smooth and fold up. He did this smilingly—she gravely giving her whole attention to the process of folding the long white parallelogram into exact squares—and at length, when the last and thickest square was arrived at, he held it fast there—she pulled, trying to look very serious—he looked at her very fondly and tenderly—she couldn’t help smiling at this and then he took the tablecloth from her, pressed it and himself with it to her heart, and said, in her arms, “Little thief! how can you be so naughty to your old ragamuffin of a Siebenkæs, or whatever his name may be?” And now the rainbow of a brighter future appeared shining above the fast ebbing flood which had risen as high as their hearts so lately—But, my dears, rainbows now-a-days very often mean just the reverse of what the first was said to signify.
The prize he awarded to his queen of the rose-feast of the heart was to ask her to let him take a profile of her pretty face, that Peltzstiefel might find a joy and a present waiting for him on the morrow. I think I shall just trace an outline of his outline-tracing for people of taste in this place; but I must stipulate that nobody is to expect a pen to be a painter’s brush—or a painter’s brush to be an engraver’s style—or an engraver’s style a flower anther, generating generation upon generation of lilies and roses.
The advocate borrowed a drawing-board, viz. the façade of a new pigeon-house, from Fecht the cobbler. Lenette’s shoulder fitted into the oval portal of it as a clasp-knife does into its handle; a sheet of white paper was tacked on to the board—her pretty, soft head was pressed on the stiff paper—he applied, with much care and self restraint, his pencil at the upper part of the brow, difficult as it was to catch the shadow in such immediate proximity to the reality—and went slowly down the beautiful, flowery declivity all roses and lilies. But little or nothing came of it; the back part of the head was pretty good. His eyes would keep turning away from his work to the sitter, so that he drew as vilely as a box-painter.
“Wendeline, your head isn’t still a moment,” he said. And indeed her face, an well as her brain-fibres, shook by reason of the heightened beat of her pulse and the quickening of her breathing; while, on the other hand, his pencil stumbled when it came to the delicate basso relievo of her little nose, fell into the cleft at her lips, and stranded on the shoal of her chin. He kissed those lips which he couldn’t draw, and which she always had either too much open or too tightly closed, and brought a shaving-glass and said, “See, haven’t you got more faces than Janus, or any Indian god? The Schulrath will think you were making faces, and I copying them. Look, here’s where you moved, and I sprung after you like a chamois; the effect of the jump is, that the upper part of the face sticks out before the lower like a half mask. Just think how the Schulrath will stare in the morning.”
“Try once more, dear; I’ll do just as you tell me; I should like it to be very nice,” Lenette said, blushing; and stiffened her neck, and steadied her soft cheek against the drawing-board. And as her husband gently glided his drawing ovipositor over her brow like a segment of some white hemisphere—instead of breathing, he found she was holding her breath this time till she shook again, and till the colour came to her face.
And here jealousy, like some exploding fire-ship, sent hard fragments of the wreck of his shattered happiness crashing on a sudden against his heart.