“Does not Miss Marie permit you to visit her in the evening?”
“Yes, she does.”
“Only when you see a light at the window of her chamber—the signal agreed upon between you—only then you are not permitted to come. Is it not so?”
“Yes, it is so, and that you may well know, as I told you of it myself. When Marie places a light at that window it is a sign that begs me not to come, because then only the intimate family circle is assembled, to which I certainly do not as yet belong.”
“You can, perhaps, assure yourself whether the young lady was strictly accurate in her statement. You intend paying her a visit this evening, do you not?”
“Yes, I do,” cried Schiller, joyfully, “and I will fall down on my knees before her, and mentally beg her pardon for the unjust suspicions which have been uttered concerning her.”
“I do not believe that she will receive you to-day,” said Körner, in a low voice. “This so-called family circle will have assembled again; in all probability you will see a light in the designated window!”
“Why do you believe that?”
“Well, because I happened to converse with several young officers to-day, who are invited to Madam von Arnim’s for this evening. They asked if they might not, at last, hope to meet you there, regretting, as Madam von Arnim had told them, that your bashfulness and misanthropy made it impossible for you to appear in strange society. I denied this, of course, and assured them that Madam von Arnim had only been jesting; but they said her daughter had also often told them that Frederick Schiller was very diffident, and always avoided the larger social gatherings. ‘If that were not the case,’ said these young gentlemen, ‘Schiller would certainly appear at Madam von Arnim’s the dansante this evening, that is, unless the feelings awakened in his bosom by the presence of Count Kunheim might be of too disagreeable a nature.’”