“You might as well ask a beauty,” she replied, “why she is jealous of a woman less pretty than herself. The why is not to be explained by logic, for envy does not calculate—it feels.”
“Yet, when Franz comes to Berlin, which will be next month, there will then be no possible doubt as to which is the finer actor.”
“Perhaps not. But the public will nevertheless applaud Franz; and however slightly they do so, to the envious ears of Schoenlein it will sound like thunder.”
The clock striking twelve warned me to depart, for in Berlin they keep early hours; and I went away thinking of what I had just heard, and feeling no small contempt for Schoenlein’s preposterous jealousy: “What a contemptible feeling is envy!—as if only one person in the world had a right to admiration!”
At that moment I stepped into a droschke, and was driving to my rooms, when I passed that miserable puppy Fürstenberg, whom, I am sorry to say, little * * * admires so much; though, for the life of me, I never could see wherefore. Yet this uncouth German, aping the dandy, usurps all her conversation, even when I am by!
It is not that I am jealous, for that is not my character; but I cannot bear to see so charming a girl so miserably deceived in any one as she is in Fürstenberg!
CHAPTER II.
Schoenlein did not play for a fortnight, and, as the time of Franz’s engagement was drawing near, I imagined he was sulking. I communicated my suspicions to Madame Röckel.
“I would wager fifty thalers,” she replied, “that he has gone to Dresden to see his dreaded rival, and judge for himself.”
It was as Madame Röckel said: goaded by irresistible jealousy, Schoenlein had set off for Dresden to see his rival play.