"What news do you bring, Rosenbusch?" asked the painter, who was as little pleased with his jollity as she had been before with his dejection. "You look as if you had just made a great find, a genuine Wouverman at some salt-dealer's, or the red cloth of which Countess Terzky dreamed in Eger. Well?"
"My honored friend," he remonstrated, "you wrong me, as usual. What I bring is not antiquities, but two very important items of news, a serious and a comic one. Which do you wish to hear first?"
"First the serious one. You alarm me, Rosenbusch. Why, you really look quite solemn."
"It is a devilish serious matter; there is war, real, genuine war, though the whole thing sounds so absurd that, in spite of the declaration by France that you can read in all the papers, one feels almost tempted to bet that it is a newspaper hoax. What do you say now, Angelica? Is that piece of news serious enough for you?"
"Gracious heavens!" cried Angelica, "what an absurdity!"
"That is a very wise remark of yours, my respected friend; but it can't be helped; on account of just such absurdities the most sensible men have lost their lives and whole nations their blood and treasure. To be sure, there must be wars, else how would the battle-painters live? However, you know my sentiments on that subject. Considering the present system of artillery battles and rapid firing, you may be sure it isn't for the sake of art that I am going."
"You going to the war? You don't know what you are talking about, Rosenbusch! You a warrior and hero? That is undoubtedly your second item of news, the comic one, I mean."
"You are again mistaken, and of course to my disadvantage, my dear patroness. The second item has nothing whatever to do with the first; on the contrary, if we must regard the first as a public calamity, we can call the second a joyful private occurrence: Fräulein Nanny and Herr Franz Xavier Kiederhuber are announced as engaged; the wedding is to take place in three weeks."
His face had not lost its indifferent expression while he spoke these words, but yet there was something about his voice as if everything were not yet quite right.
"My dear friend," she said, at last. "I have been so little au courant of your affairs of the heart for the last few months, that I really do not know whether I ought to congratulate you or to assure you of my silent sympathy, I must tell you frankly, though, that of all your lovesick moods I never could understand this passion of yours for that insignificant, coquettish, and not particularly attractive little doll--" (Even now, when the faithless one had ceased to be dangerous, Angelica's jealousy vented itself in this harsh criticism.) "And now for your grief at having found out such a little hypocrite to drive you into the jaws of a park of artillery, belching forth death and destruction--"