Timar himself was not a little confused. How was he to introduce the girl and relate how he had come by her, before this officer?
Herr Brazovics helped him out of his difficulty. With a great bustle he burst in at the door. He had just now in the café—to the surprise of all the regular customers—read aloud from the Augsburg Gazette that the escaped pasha and treasurer, Ali Tschorbadschi and his daughter, had fled on board the "St. Barbara," evaded the watchfulness of the Turkish authorities, and reached Hungary in safety. The "St. Barbara" is his ship. Tschorbadschi is a good friend of his—even a connection by the mother's side. An extraordinary event! One can fancy how Herr Athanas threw his chair back when the servant brought him the news that Herr Timar had just arrived with a beautiful young lady, and under his arm a gilt casket.
"So it is actually true!" cried Herr Athanas, and rushed up to his own apartments, not without upsetting a few of the card-players on his way.
Brazovics was a man of enormous corpulence. His stomach was always half a step in front of him. His face was copper-colored at its palest, and violet when he ought to have been rosy: even when he shaved in the morning his chin was all bristles by the evening, his scrubby mustache perfumed with smoke, snuff, and various spirits; his eyebrows formed a bushy wall over his prominent and bloodshot eyes. (A fearful thought, that the eyes of the lovely Athalie, when she grows old, will resemble her father's!)
When Herr Brazovics opens his mouth, one understands why Frau Sophie always screams; her husband, too, can only speak in shouts, but with the difference that he has a deep bass voice like a hippopotamus.
Naturally Frau Sophie, when she wants to overpower his voice with her own, raises it to a yell. It was as if they had a wager which could bring on the other a lung disease or a stroke of apoplexy. It is doubtful who will win; but Brazovics always stops his ears with wool, and Frau Sophie invariably has a comforter round her throat.
Athanas rushed, panting with haste, into the ladies' room, where his voice of thunder had already preceded him. "Is Michael there with the young lady? Where is the fraülein? Where is Michael?"
Timar hastened to catch him at the door. He might have succeeded in keeping back the man himself, but the weight of his approaching paunch, when once set in motion, bore down all obstacles.
Michael made a sign to him that a visitor was present. "Ah, that doesn't matter! You can speak openly before him. We are en famille; the Herr Lieutenant belongs to the family. Ha! ha! don't get cross, Athalie; every one knows it. You can speak freely, Michael; it is all in the papers."
"What is in the papers?" exclaimed Athalie, angrily.