“Such a clout on the ear as you gave me.... But I soon taught you.”
“Oh, don’t start talking. You’ve too much beer. Come to bed.”
He tilted back in his chair, chuckling with laughter.
“That’s not what you said to me that night. God, the trouble you gave me!”
But the little Frau seized the candle and went into the next room. The children were all soundly sleeping. She stripped the mattress off the baby’s bed to see if he was still dry, then began unfastening her blouse and skirt.
“Always the same,” she said—“all over the world the same; but, God in heaven—but stupid.”
Then even the memory of the wedding faded quite. She lay down on the bed and put her arm across her face like a child who expected to be hurt as Herr Brechenmacher lurched in.
THE MODERN SOUL
“Good-evening,” said the Herr Professor, squeezing my hand; “wonderful weather! I have just returned from a party in the wood. I have been making music for them on my trombone. You know, these pine-trees provide most suitable accompaniment for a trombone! They are sighing delicacy against sustained strength, as I remarked once in a lecture on wind instruments in Frankfort. May I be permitted to sit beside you on this bench, gnädige Frau?”
He sat down, tugging at a white-paper package in the tail pocket of his coat.