THE PROGRESSIONISTS.
FROM THE GERMAN OF CONRAD VON BOLANDEN.
CHAPTER IV.
HANS SHUND.
Hans Shund returned home from business in high feather. Something unusual must have happened him, for his behavior was exceptional. Standing before his desk, he mechanically drew various papers from his pockets, and laid them in different drawers and pigeon-holes. The mechanical manner of his behavior was what was exceptional, for usually Hans Shund bestowed particular attention upon certain papers; his soul’s life was in those papers. Moreover, on the present occasion, he kept shaking his head as if astonishment would not suffer him to remain quiet. Yet habitually Hans Shund never shook his head, for that proceeding betrays interior emotion, and Shund’s neck was as hardened and stiff as his usurer’s soul. The other exceptional feature of his behavior was a continuous growling, which at length waxed into a genuine soliloquy. But Hans Shund was never known to talk to himself, for talking to one’s self indicates a kindly disposition, whilst Shund had no disposition whatever, as they maintain who knew him; or, if he had ever had one, it had smouldered into a hard, impenetrable crust of slag.
“Strange—remarkably strange!” said he. “Hem! what can it mean? How am I to account for it? Has the usurer undergone a transformation during the night?” And a hideous grin distorted his face. “Am I metamorphosed, am I enchanted, or am I myself an enchanter? Unaccountable, marvellous, unheard of!”
The papers had been locked up in the desk. A secret power urged him up and down the room, and finally into the adjoining sitting-room, where Mrs. Shund, a pale, careworn lady, sat near a sewing-stand, intent on her lonely occupation.
“Wife, queer things have befallen me. Only think, all the city notables have raised their hats to your humble servant, and have saluted me in a friendly, almost an obsequious manner. And this has happened to me to-day—to me, the hated and despised usurer! Isn’t that quite amazing? Even the city regent, Schwefel’s son, took off his hat, and bowed as if I were some live grandee. How do you explain that prodigy?”
The careworn woman kept on sewing without raising her head.
“Why don’t you answer me, wife? Don’t you find that most astonishing?”
“I am incapable of being astonished, since grief and care have so filled my heart that no room is left in it for feelings of any other kind.”