“Lord! what a sight you are, Gustav,” said Judge Richardt, when Henck came up to his office.
“Yes, I’ve been run over,” answered Henck.
“That’s just like you,” said Richardt, laughing good-humoredly. “But you can’t go home like that. You may gladly have the loan of my fur coat, and I’ll send a boy home after my ulster.”
“Thanks,” said Dr. Henck. And after he had borrowed the hundred krona he needed, he added, “We shall be glad to have you for dinner.”
Richardt was a bachelor and was accustomed to spend Christmas Eve with Henck.
On the way home Henck was in a better humor than he had been for a long time.
That’s on account of the fur coat, he said to himself. If I had been smart, I should have got myself a fur coat on credit long ago. It would have strengthened my self-esteem and raised me in the popular opinion. One can’t pay such a small fee to a doctor in a fur coat as to a doctor in an ordinary overcoat with worn button-holes. It’s a bother that I didn’t happen to think of that before. Now it’s too late.
He walked a stretch through King’s Garden. It was dark already, it had begun to snow again, and the acquaintances he met did not recognize him.
Who knows, though, whether it’s too late, Henck went on to himself. I’m not old yet, and I may have been mistaken about the question of my health. I’m poor as a little fox in the woods; but so was John Richardt not so long since. My wife has grown cold and unfriendly toward me in these latter times. She would surely begin to love me afresh, if I could earn more money and if I were dressed in furs. It has seemed to me that she cared more for John since he got himself a fur coat than she did before. She was certainly a bit sweet on him when she was a young girl, too; but he never courted her. On the contrary he said to her and to everybody that he wouldn’t dare to marry on less than ten thousand a year. But I dared, and Ellen was a poor girl who wanted to marry. I don’t believe she was so much in love with me that I should have been able to seduce her if I had wished to. But I didn’t want to, either; how could I have dreamed of that sort of love? I haven’t thought of that since I was sixteen and saw Faust the first time at the opera with Arnoldson. I’m sure, though, she was fond of me when we were first married; one can’t be mistaken about such a thing as that. Why couldn’t she be again? In the first days after our marriage she always said spiteful things to John whenever they met. But then he built up a company, invited us often to the theatre, and got himself a fur coat. And so naturally in time my wife grew tired of saying spiteful things to him.
Henck had still several errands to do before dinner. It was already half past five when he came home laden with parcels. He felt very tender in his left shoulder, otherwise there was nothing that reminded him of his mishap in the afternoon except the fur coat.