The court had summoned old Anton from his home to give his testimony; but he had not yet arrived, so another session must be called. If she did not appear then, he had lost the game.
Just at that moment a thought entered his mind which might place him on the right track. She could have obtained her remarkable education only in scientific circles, and had probably been reared in a very intellectual family. Ottmar proposed to make a round of visits to all the prominent literary and scientific people in N----. "She is not a native of this capital, her German is too correct for that, so I will begin with the strangers," he thought. He had hitherto confined himself exclusively to the court circle, and was entirely unknown in the society he now proposed to seek.
Sunday intervened between the first and second session of the court, and Ottmar availed himself of it. He drove around the city in his elegant carriage all the morning, and was everywhere cordially received. Many, beautiful and ugly, forward and retiring, simple and highly educated young ladies were introduced to him. She was nowhere to be found.
When he paid the last visit on his list, and there also met only unfamiliar, commonplace faces, he asked the friendly head of the household, in an under-tone, whether he could mention any particularly interesting people whom a stranger in N---- ought to know.
The old gentleman reflected a short time, and finally inquired whether he had yet heard nothing of old Fräulein Veronica von Albin.
"Oh, you must seek her out!" he exclaimed when Heinrich answered his question in the negative. "She is a perfect original, a petrifaction of the period of sentimentality, and withal a really intellectual person, in whose salon you will find every one who has any pretensions to fame, and is enrolled under the banner of poetry and sensibility."
Wearied by his minute explanation, Heinrich expressed his thanks, inquired the way to her dwelling, and drove thither. He had made it a duty to follow every suggestion of destiny, but knew in advance that he should not find what he sought in the home of a sentimental old maid.
The carriage stopped before a massive stone house. Two colossal figures on the right and left of the door held lanterns adorned with intricate iron scroll-work in the fashion of the last century. The lower windows were grated with thick wrought-iron bars, and the heavy oaken door did not lack the shining brass lion's head, with the ring in its mouth. Above the door was a somewhat weather-beaten coat-of-arms, carved in stone, overshadowed by a tiny balcony provided with manifold sculptured ornaments and iron scrolls. Heinrich pulled the bell. The door was opened, and when he entered a statue placed in a niche in the staircase extended its arms as if in welcome.
A pleasant subdued light fell upon the stone stairs through a tall pointed window, and Heinrich, most agreeably impressed by this old-fashioned but massive luxury, mounted the broad stone steps.
A precise, respectable servant was standing on the landing, and silently ushered him into a little antechamber. Ottmar gave him his card, and he went forward on tip-toe to announce him. For a few moments Heinrich had time to admire the few but costly articles of furniture, rich carpet, and Chinese vases in the anteroom. His hopes began to sink. The quiet, pedantic spirit which breathed from these carefully preserved relics of a former century could not have trained the original, modern, enthusiastic nature of the Prison Fairy.