She silently shook her head and dismissed me with an absent "Farewell."
I should have infinitely preferred to stay with her and the little boy, who had completely won my heart. But the actor had already passed his hand through my arm, and now led me out. Nothing was more painful to me than this familiar contact with a man whom I had cursed a thousand times in my heart, and who was now treating me so kindly and frankly that I could not even have stabbed him with Macbeth's imaginary dagger.
We had scarcely reached the street, when he suddenly stopped, took off his straw hat, and passed his large, well-shaped hand across his brow.
"I am extremely glad that you have come, Herr Doctor," he said in a subdued voice. "I don't grudge my wife a little agreeable refreshment, such as a visit from an old friend affords.
'She is a woman, take her all in all!
We ne'er shall look upon her like again.'
But we will not conceal it from each other, she is not exactly in her sphere among us. Her eloping with me was a piece of magnanimous folly, which she does not repent, it is true, she is too proud for that, and--" here he straightened his shoulders and replaced his hat on his flowing locks--"and too happy in her marriage with me. Nevertheless, she is an aristocrat, and the best among us have a drop of gypsy blood in our veins. If she could have resolved to act--with her appearance, her superb voice--I am sure that she would now be completely absorbed by her new profession, and it would have been a great gain to me. But nothing would induce her to do this. Now she sits alone during the many hours that I am occupied, for the boy is a little aristocrat, too, and so quiet--I would rather have had a girl, you know. Girls can be used in the business much younger, and there is no such need of educating them. Well, as I said, it is only for her sake--she is really a pearl of her sex, and never complains. But I should like to see her shining in a suitable setting. Posterity weaves no garlands for the actor, and his contemporaries only too often twine for him a crown of thorns. That they wound her forehead, too, is painful to me. I am really a kind-hearted fellow. It is not true that genius makes people wicked and selfish. You will yet be convinced of it."
I replied that I should not have much time to become acquainted with all his good qualities, as I intended to continue my journey the following day.
In fact, all these disclosures made my heart so sore that I wished myself a hundred miles away.
He instantly took my arm again and led me on. "We will discuss that subject further. I will not impose any restraint upon you, but, you know, temptation is really violence, and I think you will be able to endure our society for a few weeks at least. Come to the theatre tonight. It is not our worst performance. True, when I think of the difficulties with which a traveling company must contend, and how differently I might fill the office of a priest of art, had not envy and intrigues forced me away from the great theatres--"
Here he launched forth into descriptions of his former triumphs, to which I listened with only half an ear.