"It is my wish that you should remain in this house; as far as I can judge after this preliminary acquaintance with your person and status, you please me very well. I wish that you might also please my wife. Do your part to that end, and now come."
The Privy Councillor now led the tutor across the drawing room through which he had entered to the room on the opposite side, at the door of which another noticeable change came over the man. The springs inside him seemed suddenly to lose their elasticity, the wheels and wires refused to work, his whole figure seemed to grow smaller,—the Privy Councillor knocked at his wife's door and seemed to feel a desire to peep through the keyhole first, or at least to listen at it. A moment later Hans Unwirrsch stood before the—Mistress of the House.
He saw a stately lady in black with an aquiline nose and a double chin—as solemn as a starless night; she sat on a dark divan behind a table covered with dark drapery! The whole apartment made a solemn impression—every chair and seat an altar of dignity. Serious, chaste, solemn and dignified were walls, ceiling and rugs, pictures and curtains—everything in stately order and regularity except the seven-year-old, coffee-colored, puffy little brat who at sight of the tutor raised a horrible, detestable, furious howl and attacked Hans Unwirrsch's legs with a toy whip.
"Oh, Aimé, what a way to behave!" said the lady in black. "Come to me, my darling, don't excite yourself so. Kleophea, won't you take the little whip away from the child?"
Again Kleophea shrugged her shoulders.
"No thank you, Mama. Aimé and I——"
"Be silent, now;" the Councillor's wife cried with a gesture. "I know very well what you want to say. Look here, my little lamb, see what I will give you for your whip."
The charming child could not resist the box of sweets; he put his instrument of torture into his mother's hands and she thus received the last touch that completed her imposing appearance.
With the whip in her hand the lady of the house now devoted herself entirely to the new tutor. She subjected him to a severe examination and asked for the most detailed information about the "conduct" of his life. The morals and dogmas of the young man to whom such a precious jewel was to be entrusted were very important to her and not all her questions could be answered without causing her to wrinkle her brow. On the whole, however, the examination ended favorably for the candidate and the conclusion was even very satisfactory.