It was difficult for me to repress my joy at these glad tidings. Now she is ours, I thought. Now she need no longer pore over the advertisements in the last pages of the Voss and Spener journals.
But I said quite calmly: "This happens capitally. I have a piano"--this one luxury had been procured for little money, as, though the old instrument was originally good, it had seen much service--"and I will send it early to-morrow to the almshouse, where there are plenty of vacant rooms which would be cheerfully given up to you for your lessons."
This plan was accomplished. Ere a month had passed, all the girls from fifteen to five-and-twenty were enrolled in my friend's volunteer corps of singers, and it was considered as fashionable to send a daughter to the Canoness as it is in the capitals to secure admission to the conservatory.
She had fixed a very moderate price for her lessons. Still, as she also superintended choir-singing, and soon had all her time occupied, her income was so large that I jestingly said she would soon be able to buy an estate.
She shrugged her shoulders, smiling, and I well knew what this meant. For her left hand was never aware of what her right hand was doing, and, though our town had an organized system of charity, there was ample opportunity for deeds of benevolence.
We never exchanged a word about her remaining in the almshouse. But she persistently resisted the entreaties of her young pupils and their parents to move into better lodgings in the city. "I could not do without my seven guardian angels," she said, smiling. She merely obtained somewhat better furniture for her room, sent for Uncle Joachim's old chest of drawers and the two pictures of Napoleon--he had left her everything he possessed--and added two beautiful engravings from my aunt's legacy. The large room with two windows, adjoining her own, was fitted up for her lessons, and my piano was moved into it. Many an afternoon, when I had arrived before the close of the lessons, I sat outside on the bench in her little garden, listening to the chirping within, the regular solfeggios and runs, and the magnificent bell-like tones of the teacher ringing out between them, or the sweet voices of the full choir, which practiced not only solemn motettos and cantatas, but sought recreation in Mendelssohn, Schubert, and Schumann.
The service she was rendering the young people could not fail to dispel their parents' prejudices against the wife of the strolling actor, and make them endeavor to draw her to their houses. But on this point she was inexorable. "I detest these provincial entertainments," she said to me. "I will cheerfully give the people among whom I live as much of my life as can be of service to them, but the rest I will keep for myself. To sit on the sofa a whole evening between the wives of the burgomaster and the councilor, and talk about servants and betrothals, would kill me. Besides, my opinions would rouse their displeasure before an hour was over. There is where Mother Schulzen, Mother Grabow, and the other five Fates deserve praise. They think me a saint, though I don't go to church."
But, while she retained this view and avoided the society of the mothers, she was all the more friendly in her intercourse with the daughters. Every other Sunday her pupils, about twenty in number, were allowed to spend the evening with her, and she gave them a little supper of tea, cake, and bread and butter. But these pleasant meetings were not intended merely for merry talk with the children--they were expected to produce better results. She read to them from the works of our classic writers the most beautiful and ennobling selections adapted to their age and culture, a couple of acts from one of Schiller's tragedies, which they were afterward to finish at home, once the whole of Iphigenia, at another time ballads from Goethe and Uhland, and then let her youthful audience express their ideas of what they had heard, only adding a few wise remarks of her own.
I did not attend these readings, but took the liberty of lingering outside the open window and listening to her recitations. I will not speak of the indescribable enjoyment that fell to my lot. But, though my love for this woman may make me appear somewhat partial, the assertion can be believed that she would have surpassed many a famed tragic actress, had she given her readings on the stage.
How completely she captivated her young listeners!