Yesterday I learned by chance that she was the daughter of a teacher in Beuthen, and had herself been trained as a teacher. The community had granted her a scholarship, to complete her course for the teacher's examinations at the Seminary in Breslau. There she became acquainted with a young painter, a Christian, and a love affair, as pure as it was ardent, developed between them. When her parents heard of the affair, they made her come home immediately. Her studies were interrupted, and she took up life again in her parents' house, the fountain of her emotions sealed, the bitter sorrow of an unhappy love swelling her heart. What was her inner development after this first, hard disillusionment, this spiritual conflict? Who can tell?
When, some years later, the first flush of youth past, her father expressed to her his wish that she marry Schlochauer in Raudnitz, the well-to-do proprietor of a distillery, in order to lighten his own troubles in bringing up his numerous offspring, she obeyed without a murmur. Her husband respected her, and offered no objection to her assisting her family and so enabling her brothers to study. He loved her, too—for she presented him with four children. Two died young—and as for the two remaining daughters, she would provide for them carefully. Her husband would not be deceived in her; the sacrifice of his life was not made in vain.
"When everything is settled, Herr Kreisphysikus, I am going to sell the business and the house, and move to Berlin. We have some means, Herr Doktor; my husband was a good manager. In Berlin we are not well known; and grass grows over everything that happens. No matter if a person here and there knows something about it; it is quickly forgotten. People have no time there to gossip about private affairs. I have three brothers in Berlin, all in respected positions. So, in the large city, I shall live free from care with my daughters; they are still young and will get over the pain and horror of the present."
"And you, Frau Schlochauer?" I hastily asked.
"I? I shall do my duty."
The words sounded so natural, yet it made a painful impression on me to see how collected she was, how quietly and circumspectly she looked into the future from out of the confusion and distress of the moment. Perhaps she divined the course of my thoughts, for suddenly she continued:
"Don't wonder that I speak of this matter so calmly. You become accustomed to such things if for twenty years you live with a business man in this neighborhood, among such rude, rough folk. You learn to be on the lookout, to be careful and practical. And you forget that once you regarded the world with different eyes."
She uttered the last words softly, with downward glance. When I heard the history of her youth yesterday, I saw her in my mind's eye again, and a feeling of boundless pity for this woman swept over me—not for what she was suffering now—now that she was steeled and experienced—but for her youth, the youth she had lost because practical considerations and hindrances determined the course of her life.
But now I must tell about a remarkable acquaintance I made yesterday, the man who told me what I know of Frau Schlochauer's history. He introduces some humor into the affair.
"Herr Jonas Goldstücker."