“Hush, my friendt! I not touch her! She kill herself—she try to hang and she shoke her neck. No, no, to you I vill not lie! You speak all true! Mein Gott! Vat vill you do?”
The man was on his knees. I thought of the circumstances, the persons concerned, the high-strung, sensitive lover of music, the coarse, derisive, perhaps faithless woman, and I replied quickly:
“What will I do? Nothing to-night. It's none of my business, anyhow. I'll sleep over it and tell you in the morning.”
I left him alone.
In the morning the professor's door stood ajar. I looked in. Man, clothes, violin case, and valise had gone. Whither I have not tried to ascertain.
When the new opera was produced that evening the —— Theatre orchestra was unexpectedly minus two of its second violins, for Schaaf, half-distracted, was wandering the cold streets in search of his friend.
III. — ON THE BRIDGE
When I tell you, my only friend, to whom I so rarely write and whom I more rarely see, that my lonely life has not been without love for woman, you will perhaps laugh or doubt.