No sooner had I glanced over the first lines of the terrible article than I grew dizzy, and therewith began to tremble convulsively. Thrine fainted away. Picture the scene to yourself, dear friend. Without raged the storm. Ah, the situation was dramatic. From the paper I gathered that Professor Johannes Minckwitz, in just indignation over the last of my harmless letters, had sued the editor of the Salon for misuse of his name, and for literary forgery, and had entrusted Dr. Coccius, a lawyer in Leipsic, with the impeachment.
“I GLANCED OVER THE FIRST LINES OF THE TERRIBLE ARTICLE.”
“Thrine,” I began, after an effective pause, “I begin to understand that we must part! You knew me in happy days of yore, do not forget me now when sorrow is breaking in upon me. One service I would ask of you before parting, it is the last. Do me the favour to accept the “Neuhochdeutschen Parnass” as a token of remembrance from me. You always need paper to clean the windows, I know. Fare-thee-well, Thrine!”
I was left alone with my anguish. Dishonoured, I cried, dishonoured! Misunderstood, indicted! How different was it, oh Kleinstädter, when you glided innocently through the pages of the Salon in the company of better wits than Minckwitz! Johannes turns from me, and
“Wo ich ihn nicht gab,
Ist mir das Grab.”
So “The Death of a Youthful Hero” did not flow from the pen of the great poet! Never was I more surprised than over this discovery. I am to stand before the jury; I shall be condemned to dishonourable penalties—in a word, like the knapsack of the lieutenant, I am perdu.
The Kleinstädter before the jury? Since I have heard that in the “Lawyer Hamlet” the jury are brought upon the stage to do nothing at all, I have a very clear impression of this horrible situation. In this “Lawyer Hamlet,” which, by the way, has been very scantily advertised (indeed scarce thirty papers devoted more than five columns to a detailed account of the piece), there is a certain Baron von Sonne who defends all poor people, and takes this opportunity of speechifying on various topics. This Baron von Sonne is the man for me; I shall turn to him in my extremity. And as I need not fear that the unknown author of “Lawyer Hamlet” will impeach me for misuse of his name—a guilt which he himself has been careful to avoid—I will herewith give the last act of the play, that is to say, the last act as it would have read if the accused had been the Kleinstädter instead of Stella.
Here goes then—