He spent a couple of weeks with his young wife at the Hotel Munsch; a hostelry now out of fashion, but having for generations enjoyed the patronage of the Malzin family, and after that he hired a pretty suite of second-story rooms in a retired street, and arranged it according to his taste, and as he honestly believed, as moderately as possible. He had none of the snobbishness of an impoverished parvenu, who is ashamed of being obliged suddenly to retrench, and hides his economies as a crime. On the contrary, he exulted boyishly when he had succeeded in procuring at a moderate price some pretty piece of furniture, an old oriental rug, or a carved chest, nor did he ever hesitate to lend a hand himself; he hammered and tacked with his slender fingers, as if he had been bred to such work all his life.
And it must be admitted that, with the exception of the drawing-room, which his wife in spite of his remonstrances persisted in disfiguring with green damask hangings, purchased at an auction with her savings, his little home was a masterpiece of tasteful comfort. His former comrades liked to drop in often for a game of cards with him. There was no high play, and the drinking was very moderate, but the supper, the style of the company, and the company itself, were always alike exquisite.
The only disturbing element at these unostentatious gatherings was the mistress of the household, who sat opposite her husband at supper, affected and peevish in manner, and really bored by the high-bred and respectful courtesy with which she was treated.
At first Fritz had indulged in ideal schemes of educating his wife, but they all came to grief. There was no trace in the wife of the docile devotion of the betrothed. A woman whose whole heart is her husband's never feels humiliated by his superiority. Her whole being aspires to him, her perceptions become all the more acute, and in a very short while she learns to divine, to avoid, whatever may offend him.
This was, however, by no means the case with Charlotte. Her love for Fritz was of a very humdrum kind, and comprehension of him she had none. She did not acknowledge his superiority. All his good-humoured little preachments upon manners, she listened to with stubborn irritability. She was characterized to an extreme degree by the obdurate narrow-mindedness which sneers conceitedly at everything unlike itself, and absolutely refuses to learn. Fine clothes and pedantic affectations awed her, but she had no appreciation for the simple good-breeding of a man whose manners are the natural outgrowth of the habits of his class. Genuine good-breeding is like a mother-tongue which is spoken from childhood unconsciously as to its source, and correctly, without a thought of conjugations and declensions.
This she neither knew nor understood; she was far better pleased with the artificial manners which are acquired when one is grown up, like a foreign tongue from the grammar, and which are continually seasoned with pretentious quotations, from modern dictionaries of etiquette. The difference between Count Fritz and a smugly-dressed bagman, lay in her eyes solely in the title.
Before long Fritz grew tired of trying to educate her, and confined himself merely to the most necessary admonitions.
Time passed--and there was a cradle hung with green silk in the Countess's room, and within it lay a boy of rare beauty. Charlotte petted and caressed her child with the instinct of tenderness shown by the lower animals towards their young, an instinct which fades out gradually, as soon as the offspring can forego its mother's physical care. Fritz rejoiced over the little fellow and had him christened Siegfried after the old Count his father, to whom he announced the birth of his grandson, hoping that it might help to bring about a reconciliation with the angry parent.
But the Count took no notice of the announcement.
At first Fritz's paternal sentiments were by no means enthusiastic, and if at times he caressed the little man, it was more out of kindness towards the mother than out of real interest in the child.