For the first time Hans partook of bread and salt with his new associates in life. Again he had to answer many questions in regard to his preëxistence and it appeared that in that preëxistence many of the things that came onto the table were unknown. Mrs. Götz still remained a born von Lichtenhahn, the Privy Councillor remained what he was; Kleophea smiled and shrugged her shoulders, Aimé was very unamiable, and Fränzchen sat at the lower end of the table next to the candidate Hans Unwirrsch.
Summary of Chapters XVIII-XXI
[Hans soon learned how things went on in the Privy Councillor's house. The sovereign power lay in the hands of the mistress of the house. Aurelia Götz, née von Lichtenhahn, swayed the sceptre with a strong hand. She ruled arbitrarily up to the boundaries of Kleophea's realm. To the tutor Kleophea herself appeared to be a wonder. Unusually beautiful and talented she drew and painted, played the piano, sang and read several languages, with preference French and whatever she should not have read. At five o'clock teas she loved to speak to pious ladies of Boccaccio and the Decameron, to the vexation of her Mamma. Kleophea hated her Mamma because of the name she had received from the latter at her baptism and against which she had always protested. Much in the development of her character was due to this name and her opposition to it. She declared her brother to be a "horrid toad" and he scarcely dared show himself in her presence. This did not improve her relations with her mother. She had hoped to find an ally in her cousin but soon pronounced her to be a "lamb." Still, she could not make an absolute slave of her. She treated her now as a confidant, now as the opposite, caressed her one day and pushed her brusquely aside the next. Franziska was not well treated by her aunt. The latter had not been friends either with "the despised, godless freebooter and Jacobite" Felix, or with "the careless beggar and ill-mannered vagabond" Rudolf. She had been glad, however, to take the orphan into her house; the town talked of it, and she, too, was able to make it the subject of conversation. The tutor was allowed to instruct the "sweet Aimé" only under the eyes of his mother and this caused the teacher to sweat more than the pupil.
One day, when Aimé was ill from overstudy, that is, from over-eating, Hans sought out Dr. Théophile Stein. In answer to his knock a pretty, laughing young lady with very black hair and a rather uptilted nose opened the door. Behind this merry girl Théophile appeared, somewhat annoyed and embarrassed, though he smiled when he recognized Hans and said: "Oh, it's you, come in." The lady put on her dainty, rosy little hat in front of the glass, threw the candidate a kiss and the words: "Bon jour, monsieur le curé" and slipped out as gracefully as a bird. Dr. Stein followed her into the passage and for some time after Hans heard her joyful laughter. Then her clear voice cried: "Traître, va!" and Moses came back into the room. He explained that this little full-blooded Parisian was a poor orphan, a little maker of trimmings to whom he had shown many kindnesses in Paris and who had now come to town to try her luck in working for the ladies there. He questioned Hans about his life and listened attentively when he heard that he was tutor in the house of Privy Councillor Götz. He called Hans an enviable fellow to be able to live under the same roof as the beautiful Kleophea Götz and asked if he might come to see him there. He told of how he had had fencing lessons from Franziska Götz's father, a drunkard and rather a canaille, and that he had often protected the girl from hunger and perhaps other misfortune. After the old freebooter had died of delirium tremens he had taken care of the unhappy girl until the arrival of her uncle from Germany. Of course he was a Jew and received the usual reward. The young lady thought that he had exceeded his bounds. When he had tried to defend himself he had been insulted and scorned. It was the old story of the gratitude of the world. Thus in Hans' eyes he cleared himself of the lieutenant's accusations. He objected strongly to being called Moses, said that his name was now Théophile Stein, that he had forsworn the faith of his fathers and had become a Christian, a Roman Catholic, and that he might soon become a lecturer on the Semitic languages at the university. All these revelations gave Hans plenty to think about on his way home.
For some time after that everything remained as it was. The tutor did his duty as well as he could; Mrs. Götz became more and more convinced that unfortunately he too possessed a most obstinate and deceitful character. Kleophea discovered a new name for Franziska, called her l'eau dormante and drew caricatures of Hans. Franziska's step remained as inaudible as before and her kindly care-filled face seldom brightened into a smile; nothing whatever was heard of the lieutenant; he had disappeared and gave no sign of life. The person least spoken of in the Privy Councillor's house was the Privy Councillor.
During this time the soul of the theological candidate, Johannes Unwirrsch of Kröppel Street, was in an extraordinary state. He stood in the centre of the life for which he had longed so much; he had stepped down and the great roar had dissolved into single voices and tones and the voices that he heard around him were more harsh and evil than loving. He felt less satisfied than ever and was obliged to confess to himself that he had not as yet acquired an understanding of this world. Once for all he belonged to those happily unhappy natures who have to solve every contradiction that meets them. It was simply that he had that hunger for the symmetry and harmony of all things which so few people understand, which is so hard to satisfy and is never completely satisfied except in death.
In addition to all his other troubles Hans had much ado to defend himself against the charm that Kleophea exercised over him.
Franziska was quieter than ever. In the meantime the signs of returning spring multiplied. Dr. Théophile Stein paid his first visit to the Privy Councillor's tutor and was very winning and very amiable. He listened to every noise in the house, asked all sorts of questions about the tutor's life there, asked about the architecture of the house; the position and furnishings of the rooms on the first floor, about the pictures on the walls and the service in the kitchen. He was not uninterested in the sympathies of the Privy Councillor's wife and still less so in her antipathies. He asked for detailed information about Aimé as well as about the master of the house. At last he had finished, inwardly shut up his note-book and succeeded by a clever winding-up in convincing poor Hans that he had only asked all these questions out of interest in the fate and present life of the companion of his youth.
Mrs. Götz had of course heard of the visit and, at the dinner table, asked about this Dr. Stein, who was much talked of in town at the moment, and who was said to be very gifted and much traveled. At that Hans began to speak out of the fullness of his heart and told everything about Moses Freudenstein that he could tell. He praised his kind heart, clever head and scholarliness and unfortunately did not notice what a start the lieutenant's Fränzchen gave when she learnt who had that day been in the house in which she had sought protection.
Hans said nothing of the merry French orphan as, when he was on the point of leaving, Dr. Stein had modestly and laughingly begged him not to mention her. The following day Franziska did not appear at the table; she was not well. She was obliged to keep her bed for a whole week and, for the first time Hans had the opportunity of noticing what a gap her absence made. Suddenly the idea came into his mind that his speech at the table about Moses Freudenstein might be the cause of the poor child's illness and this thought sent all the blood rushing to his heart so violently that he was scarcely able to breathe. The same morning the mistress of the house sent for him to come to her room where he found his friend Théophile Stein, alias Moses Freudenstein, sitting beside Mrs. Götz, opposite Kleophea, with little Aimé on his knee. Another older man was sitting there too.