On hearing this question, that was uttered by an old woman in rags, the whole crowd laughed uproariously. Marianne even then took no notice. She only thought that her carriage was a good while coming up, and the supposed slowness of her footman was the sole cause of the frown which now commenced clouding her brow. When the crowd ceased laughing, a woman, a Jewess, in a dirty and ragged dress, stepped forth and placed herself close to Marianne.
“You think she is indebted to her father for those diamonds!” she yelled. “No, I know better, and can tell you all about it. Her father was a good friend of mine, and frequently traded with me when he was still a poor, peddling Jew. He afterward made a great deal of money, while I grew very poor; but he never bought her those diamonds. Just listen to me, and I will tell you what sort of a woman she is who now looks down on us with such a haughty air. She is the Jewess Marianne Meier, the mistress of the old Prince von Reuss!”
“Ah, a mistress!” shouted the crowd, sneeringly. “And she is looking at us as though she were a queen. She wears diamonds in her hair, and wants to hide her shame by dressing in purple velvet. She—”
At that moment the carriage rolled up to the door; the footman obsequiously opened the coach door and hastened to push back the crowd in order to enable Marianne to walk over the carpet spread out on the sidewalk to her carriage.
“We won’t be driven back!” roared the crowd; “we want to see the beautiful mistress—we want to see her close by.”
And laughing, shouting, and jeering, the bystanders crowded closely around Marianne. She walked past them, proud and erect, and did not seem to hear the insulting remarks that were being levelled at her. Only her cheeks had turned even paler than before, and her lips were quivering a little.
Now she had reached her carriage and entered. The footman closed the door, but the mob still crowded around the carriage, and looked through the glass windows, shouting, “Look at her! look at her! What a splendid mistress she is! Hurrah for her! Long live the mistress!”
The coachman whipped the horses, and the carriage commenced moving, but it could make but little headway, the jeering crowd rolling along with it like a huge black wave, and trying to keep it back at every step.
Marianne sat proudly erect in her carriage, staring at the mob with naming and disdainful eyes. Not a tear moistened her eyes; not a word, not a cry issued from her firmly-compressed lips. Even when her carriage, turning around the corner, gained at last a free field and sped away with thundering noise, there was no change whatever in her attitude, or in the expression of her countenance. She soon reached the embassy buildings. The carriage stopped in front of the vestibule, and the footman opened the coach door. Marianne alighted and walked slowly and proudly to the staircase. The footman hastened after her, and when she had just reached the first landing place he stood behind her and whispered;
“I beg your pardon, madame; I was really entirely innocent. Your carriage being the last to arrive, it had to take the hindmost place; that was the reason why it took us so long to get it to the door. I beg your pardon, madame.”