"No one need know. Come, child, let us go to the others." Helplessly she followed him, and took leave of her guests. The suitors went away in deep, dumb amazement. The Kirsten girls kissed their friend heartily on the cheeks, and their comrades pressed her hand.
"For God's sake, child," said the Raven-mother, when the last had departed, "are you clean out of your senses?"
"Let her alone," said Herr Sperber. "We don't need anything. Go to bed. I'll stay with our child. Leave us alone."
And they were left alone. They went together into the living-room, Herr Sperber carrying one of the large candles with him. "Now tell me, child, how all this has happened!" She knelt in front of the little old man, who sat, full of care, in Herr Rauchfuss's armchair; and again the hot tears flowed. "Do you remember the night when your father lay dying, and we sat here and waited for him to draw his last breath--eh, child?" The girl nodded. "Do you know that Herr Kosch shows a decided inclination to take to drinking?" She nodded again, her eyes staring straight before her, full of pain. "And in spite of that ...? Tell me, is it absolutely necessary for a woman to be entirely without reason? Do you think you could stop him if he made up his mind to be a drunkard!"
"No," she said.
"Then what did you mean, my girl, by what you said just now? You want to be alive as he is alive? And you want him to be your friend? What did it mean? Look, I'll set the thing all straight for you. You must know your mother was just such another overstrained little soul, good and dear as she was. Look at my old woman, look at the old Kummerfelden. All women of the better sort have had their little whimsies when they were young. But you see, women learn to think in another fashion from men. Men come to it sooner--people teach them the trick. You see, I'm telling you the thing just as I see it ... They go to school longer; they learn their trade; they've got to play a part in the world. Of course a good deal of it is put upon them artificially--it doesn't always come to them naturally; but it's got to come. One generation tells the next what it has thought. Like an irresistible avalanche the whole heap of thoughts, whatever has been thought, comes down on us men. Or, if you'll understand me better, we get all our food ready chewed up for us.
"Now women learn to think in quite a different way. When they're very young, life leaves them quiet, doesn't put too much of a strain on them. But when the time comes, life itself teaches them to think. The avalanche of thoughts doesn't come down on them, nor do they get their food ready chewed. Out of their own nature grow the thoughts, and understanding of life. Look at my old woman and the Kummerfelden. I take my hat off to those two good old souls! They think simply about everything; but what they think is nothing foreign, nothing learned--it is their own, their hard-won property. We men are seldom so natural, so penetrated by our convictions, so simple. We have much in us that is foreign--or dead. I'm not talking so much of myself--I'm a simple old fellow. But for all that, you know, old Sperber isn't a fool. Do you think he doesn't understand you? Ah ...
"When a man is in love with you, he's everything but your friend. He can only be your friend when the stage of being in love has passed; and even then he may not be your friend. That's a thing you've got to deserve! That is life's highest gift, and it doesn't fall into everybody's lap. Yes--perhaps you can't even deserve it; it's got to come to you like the big prize in the lottery.
"And so we come to it: we are too simple for you--you want to go up higher. You don't want to grow as we have grown, I fancy, to develop quietly like my old woman. You want to spring up suddenly to the heights. The air that comes up from Weimar has poisoned you--that fine spiritual air. But you see there's nothing for you in that. Wait, wait, wait! What the good God has chosen that we should know here below, we shall know when the time comes; mother Nature looks out for that. There's no need of a forcing-house for such plants.
"Look--there's still time. Tomorrow morning early I'll go to your engraver and say to him: 'My dear fellow, you probably know by this time what girls are ... An old man has been talking to her, and she has changed her mind.' It would be ruination for both of you."