“Doch!” she said, smiling. “But I did not know what a child you were, or I should have let you alone.”
More offended than ever, I maintained silence. If I were certainly touchy and ill to please, Fräulein Sartorius, it must be owned, did not know how to apologize gracefully. I have since, with wider knowledge of her country and its men and women, got to see that what made her so inharmonious was, that she had a woman’s form and a man’s disposition and love of freedom. As her countrywomen taken in the gross are the most utterly “in bonds” of any women in Europe, this spoiled her life in a manner which can not be understood here, where women in comparison are free as air, and gave no little of the brusqueness and roughness to her manner. In an enlightened English home she would have been an admirable, firm, clever woman; here she was that most dreadful of all abnormal growths—a woman with a will of her own.
“What do they do here?” I inquired, indifferently.
“Oh, many things. Though it is not a large town there is a School of Art, which brings many painters here. There are a hundred and fifty—besides students.”
“And you are a student?”
“Yes. One must have something to do—some carrière—though my countrywomen say not. I shall go away for a few months soon, but I am waiting for the last great concert. It will be the ‘Paradise Lost’ of Rubenstein.”
“Ah, yes!” said I, politely, but without interest. I had never heard of Rubenstein and the “Verlorenes Paradies.” Before the furor of 1876, how many scores of provincial English had?
“There is very much music here,” she continued. “Are you fond of it?”
“Ye-es. I can’t play much, but I can sing. I have come here partly to take singing lessons.”
“So!”