"How can you be hostile to a language," cried our friend, "to which we Germans are indebted for the greater part of our accomplishments; to which we must become indebted still more, if our natural qualities are ever to assume their proper form?"
"It is no prejudice!" replied Aurelia, "a painful impression, a hated recollection of my faithless friend, has robbed me of all enjoyment in that beautiful and cultivated tongue. How I hate it now with my whole strength and heart! During the period of our kindliest connection, he wrote in German; and what genuine, powerful, cordial German! It was not till he wanted to get quit of me that he began seriously to write in French. I marked, I felt, what he meant. What he would have blushed to utter in his mother tongue, he could by this means write with a quiet conscience. It is the language of reservations, equivocations, and lies: it is a perfidious language. Heaven be praised! I cannot find another word to express this perfide of theirs in all its compass. Our poor treulos, the faithless of the English, are innocent as babes beside it. Perfide means faithless with pleasure, with insolence and malice. How enviable is the culture of a nation that can figure out so many shades of meaning by a single word! French is exactly the language of the world,—worthy to become the universal language, that all may have it in their power to cheat and cozen and betray each other! His French letters were always smooth and pleasant, while you read them. If you chose to believe it, they sounded warmly, even passionately; but, if you examined narrowly, they were but phrases,—accursed phrases! He has spoiled my feeling to the whole language, to French literature, even to the beautiful, delicious expressions of noble souls which may be found in it. I shudder when a French word is spoken in my hearing."
In such terms she could for hours continue to give utterance to her chagrin, interrupting or disturbing every other kind of conversation. Sooner or later, Serlo used to put an end to such peevish lamentations by some bitter sally; but by this means, commonly, the talk for the evening was destroyed.
In all provinces of life, it is unhappily the case, that whatever is to be accomplished by a number of co-operating men and circumstances cannot long continue perfect. Of an acting company as well as of a kingdom, of a circle of friends as well as of an army, you may commonly select the moment when it may be said that all was standing on the highest pinnacle of harmony, perfection, contentment, and activity. But alterations will ere long occur; the individuals that compose the body often change; new members are added; the persons are no longer suited to the circumstances, or the circumstances to the persons; what was formerly united quickly falls asunder. Thus it was with Serlo's company. For a time you might have called it as complete as any German company could ever boast of being. Most of the actors were occupying their proper places: all had enough to do, and all did it willingly. Their private personal condition was not bad; and each appeared to promise great things in his art, for each commenced with animation and alacrity. But it soon became apparent that a part of them were mere automatons, who could not reach beyond what was attainable without the aid of feeling. Nor was it long till grudgings and envyings arose among them, such as commonly obstruct every good arrangement, and easily distort and tear in pieces every thing that reasonable and thinking men would wish to keep united.
The departure of Philina was not quite so insignificant as it had at first appeared. She had always skilfully contrived to entertain the manager, and keep the others in good humor. She had endured Aurelia's violence with amazing patience, and her dearest task had been to flatter Wilhelm. Thus she was, in some respects, a bond of union for the whole: the loss of her was quickly felt.
Serlo could not live without some little passion of the love sort. Elmira was of late grown up, we might almost say grown beautiful; for some time she had been attracting his attention: and Philina, with her usual dexterity, had favored this attachment so soon as she observed it. "We should train ourselves in time," she would say, "to the business of procuress: nothing else remains for us when we are old." Serlo and Elmira had by this means so approximated to each other, that, shortly after the departure of Philina, both were of a mind: and their small romance was rendered doubly interesting, as they had to hide it sedulously from the father; Old Boisterous not understanding jokes of that description. Elmira's sister had been admitted to the secret; and Serlo was, in consequence, obliged to overlook a multitude of things in both of them. One of their worst habits was an excessive love of junketing,—nay, if you will, an intolerable gluttony. In this respect they altogether differed from Philina, to whom it gave a new tint of loveliness, that she seemed, as it were, to live on air, eating very little; and, for drink, merely skimming off, with all imaginable grace, the foam from a glass of champagne.
Now, however, Serlo, if he meant to please his doxies, was obliged to join breakfast with dinner; and with this, by a substantial bever, to connect the supper. But, amid gormandizing, Serlo entertained another plan, which he longed to have fulfilled. He imagined that he saw a kind of attachment between Wilhelm and Aurelia, and he anxiously wished that it might assume a serious shape. He hoped to cast the whole mechanical department of his theatrical economy on Wilhelm's shoulders; to find in him, as in the former brother, a faithful and industrious tool. Already he had, by degrees, shifted over to him most of the cares of management; Aurelia kept the strong-box; and Serlo once more lived as he had done of old, entirely according to his humor. Yet there was a circumstance which vexed him in secret, as it did his sister likewise.
The world has a particular way of acting towards public persons of acknowledged merit: it gradually begins to be indifferent to them, and to favor talents which are new, though far inferior; it makes excessive requisitions of the former, and accepts of any thing with approbation from the latter.
Serlo and Aurelia had opportunity enough to meditate on this peculiarity. The strangers, especially the young and handsome ones, had drawn the whole attention and applause upon themselves; and Serlo and his sister, in spite of the most zealous efforts, had in general to make their exits without the welcome sound of clapping hands. It is true, some special causes were at work on this occasion. Aurelia's pride was palpable, and her contempt for the public was known to many. Serlo, indeed, flattered every individual; but his cutting jibes against the whole were often circulated and repeated. The new members, again, were not only strangers, unknown, and wanting help, but some of them were likewise young and amiable: thus all of them found patrons.