During this enthusiastic outburst of joy she had been dancing about the room like a crazy person, and now suddenly sat down in Leah's lap, threw her arms around her, and humbly bent her head, as if expecting the chastisement would be given in good earnest. Leah bent toward her. "You're a sweet child," she said, secretly drying her tearful eyes in Reginchen's hair. "Come, be sensible. And I'm entirely in earnest about keeping the matter a secret. Who knows whether I may not be disappointed? Have I not twice cherished the hope, only to be doubly unhappy? That's why Edwin must know nothing about it until I'm perfectly sure. Oh! darling, I'll never, never forget that you have rejoiced with me. It seems as if I had discovered to-day, for the first time, that you really love me, and what a precious treasure you are. The man would not deserve you at all, who would question of the books you had read or the subjects you were able to discuss."
They held each other in a close embrace, and then with all the unwearied energy of a woman's fancy, Reginchen began to picture the happy future Leah might now expect. But she insisted that she should be required to keep the secret from her Reinhold only so long as Edwin himself knew nothing of it. She asked when he would return. Since the arrival of the letter Edwin had written at the hotel, which was now four days old, Leah had not heard from him, and therefore concluded he would not remain much longer away. "This is the first time," said she, "that we've been separated so many days, and I know that if he didn't consider it necessary for his health, he wouldn't have stayed half so long."
"But it's strange he doesn't write oftener," said Reginchen. "When my Reinhold has to go to Leipsic on business, I get half a dozen letters from him. You must train your husband better. Besides writing's his trade."
"You don't know him, dearest. Precisely because he's in the habit of telling me everything, it's hard for him to communicate with me, even an hour every day, by his pen. He feels a sort of defiance against the separation. He won't learn to be satisfied with a little, and if he can't have all, prefers to get nothing."
"It may be so," replied her friend. "Besides, it always seems to me as if you two really didn't need to speak to each other at all, but exchanged your thoughts without the aid of words. But only let little Leah come, and she'll give you some entirely new thoughts. Reinhold's letters and mine contain nothing but anecdotes about the children; if any one else should read them, he would laugh at us. But we're perfectly serious."
Steps ascending the staircase interrupted these confidential outpourings. The father-in-law and son-in-law, who had returned from the workmen's meeting, entered, Franzelius exactly the same us in the old days, only thanks to his little wife, with hair somewhat more smoothly brushed and cravat more evenly tied, while the black eyes under the bushy brows beamed with a quiet, almost shy expression of love and happiness, which he owed to the same little wife also. Papa Feyertag, on the contrary, was scarcely recognizable. The once benevolent face, with its smile of superiority, had assumed a strangely eager, excited expression, which together with a half grown grey moustache rendered it by no means attractive. Instead of the neat, quiet dress which he was in the habit of wearing on Sundays in his shop, his short, thick set figure was clad in the fashionable garb of a tourist, a mustard colored shade of cloth, variegated with little points and dots from head to foot, and in addition a ridiculous little hat with a blue ribbon. He was heated, and seemed to break off an angry conversation with his son-in-law as he perceived the visitor. Reginchen cast a hasty glance at her husband, which the latter answered with a slight shrug of the shoulders, but when a lamp was brought in and the simple supper placed upon the table, the cheerful mood that usually reigned in the household soon returned, and even the old gentleman became more good natured. He told Leah that his wife, who had never been farther from Berlin than Potsdam or the Müggelsee, had this time also obstinately refused to visit her daughter in her own house. She declared she could not eat anything that was not cooked in Berlin water, and during the one night she spent at Potsdam, she had been unable to close her eyes, because there were no good beds out of Berlin. "What's to be done, dear Frau Doctorin? Women are women. I tried to conquer her by rousing her jealousy, and threatened to persuade the Frau Professorin, I mean Madame König, your step-mother, to come with me, as your father unfortunately cannot stir from home on account of his gout. She knows I think your mother a very beautiful lady, in spite of her forty-five years, and we're always joking together. But she also knew very well, that it was only a joke, for that young couple--your parents I mean--can't be so easily separated. They gave me the kindest messages for you, and asked why you didn't come to Berlin. After all, you owe it to your parents to do so, and you might be so comfortable in their new house."
"A teacher of mathematics, who has learned how to calculate and has opportunities in abundance for doing so, doesn't find it as easy to travel, as a house-owner in the capital," replied Leah with a faint blush. "Besides Edwin needs his vacations to regain his strength, and Berlin, as he always says, is a great human mill, where one is ground to powder in a fortnight."
"Why, he lived there more than fourteen years, and was always well," said the old man. "'But every one to his taste.'" He, for instance, could not endure to stay six months in such a little place as this town, where his children lived. He should feel like a great pike that had wandered into stagnant water and could not find its way back to the flowing river again. "The future, dear Frau Doctorin," he continued, "belongs to the great cities; smaller ones are dying out. I shall not live to see the day--but you and my children may perhaps do so, at any rate the little ones sleeping yonder--when Germany will have no cities nearer to each other than fifty miles; but then to be sure each will be a city indeed, containing at least eight hundred thousand inhabitants, without counting the suburbs. The culture which the present time demands of men, is not possible to be attained without great means and the arts and sciences can be properly fostered only in the great centres of commerce. I heard a lecture delivered before our society," he continued, "which will soon appear in print. I will send you a copy as soon as it is published."
"And where's the bread and meat for the great cities to come from, dear father?" asked Franzelius, who had been silently listening, and meantime making great havoc in these two articles, which his wife had set before him.
"That's the business of the railroads," replied the shoemaker, without the slightest embarrassment. "The country people, or rather the members of the great rural industrial societies, will go out every morning through the open country, till the fields, attend to the cattle, and return by rail in the evening to the city, which they'll reach in time to witness William Tell or hear Lucca. Why should these worthy people be forever excluded from all education and culture, merely because hitherto no theatres, concerts, and universities have existed in the villages?"