Many of the older people were made somewhat anxious by finding that the actor's wife was on such intimate terms with her young pupils that she directed not only their singing but their thoughts and feelings. But the last ice melted, though it was the very middle of winter; when a nocturnal conflagration destroyed several houses and robbed some families of their whole property. Frau Luise instantly advertised a concert in the town-hall for the benefit of the sufferers. She herself sang, her pupils helped to the best of their ability in solos, choir-singing, and recitations. Every nook in the hall, spite of the high price of admission, was occupied, and the next day there was but one verdict in house and hovel, namely, that no such pleasure had ever been enjoyed by even the oldest inhabitants, and no more noble soul ever dwelt in woman's breast than in the tuneful one of this greatly misjudged lady.
So she had reached this point.
The swan, that had lost its way in the marsh, had plunged into the clear water of this quiet country lake, shaken its feathers, and lo! they were once more snow-white as in its early days.
Even the pastor, who had been unable to forgive her for not appearing at his church and having even chosen as her only intimate friend a renegade theologian, whom he could not help doubly condemning--even this zealous shepherd of souls could not permanently refuse her his esteem. After the concert he called on her, and had a conversation which lasted two hours. I met him just as he was leaving the almshouse. His face looked as I imagine Moses' might have done after he had seen the Lord in the naming bush. I did not even consider this strange. What victory over human hearts might I not have expected this woman to achieve!
The "overflowing treasure of grace" she so lavishly bestowed benefited me also. For the first time, my modest greeting to the secretly resentful man was returned with a friendly gesture, in which I fancied I noticed a shade of curious interest. We afterward became better acquainted, and learned to sincerely value each other.
My position as the Canoness's special friend was of course much envied by my colleagues and other acquaintances, and many questions were asked about her. But, as I had no intimacies, I was not obliged to put any unusual bolts on my heart, that it might keep its secrets. And I must add one thing more which, amid such narrow, provincial environments, does the highest honor to human nature: never, by even the most trivial jest, was the slightest shadow cast upon the purity of my intercourse with her.
Nay, a still more extraordinary thing: even the most arrogant among the wives of the dignitaries willingly yielded her the precedence she never claimed, and without envy or hatred beheld this stranger, who had been received into the almshouse from Christian charity, ruling the city as it were from her little room--at least, in all matters relating to the common welfare of the inhabitants and their intellectual life. Even the burgomaster's wife and her friends, who gathered at society meetings and coffee-parties, did not consider it beneath their dignity to seek the Canoness's advice on any charitable business, or any question concerning education or etiquette, with a faith as devout as if the almshouse were the oracle of Delphi, and Frau Luise sat on the tripod as priestess. She told me the drollest stories about these occasions, which I, as a faithful servant of the temple, vowed to silence, must not betray here.
Thus the renown of her talents and virtues could not fail to extend beyond the precincts of our little town, till at last even the newspapers mentioned her. She took no notice of it; indeed, she did not look at the papers, now that the advertisements no longer interested her. I think she secretly dreaded to accidentally read the name of the man whom she desired to forever forget.
But her concert for the sufferers by the conflagration had made such a sensation that all Preignitz and Uckermark rang with its fame. So one day, when I came to chat with her a little while after she had finished her lessons, I saw standing in front of the almshouse a dusty carriage, on whose door I recognized the coat of arms of her own family, though the faces of coachman and footman were unfamiliar to me.