"No, no, indeed, my dear Bertha!" said her husband with a shudder; "but the two can be united if you try. I do not ask you either to study Greek and Latin, or to resign your masterly supervision of our kitchen department; but you have hitherto performed many little household offices, that could as well have been left to the servant, because you had no pleasanter way of occupying your time. This must be otherwise now; hitherto you have had the excuse of our straitened circumstances that have compelled you sometimes to discharge a servant's duties. Now there will be no such excuse; for you will have a suitable household in town, and time to cultivate your mind and render yourself a worthy member of the society to which I shall introduce you."
Bertha in her impatience let her spoon fall into the soup-plate, and then wreaked her irritation upon the soup, which she poured hastily back into the tureen.
"If you should do such a thing as that before strangers," said her husband angrily, "you would stamp yourself as a person of no refinement, and I should be disgraced."
Bertha brought her hand down upon the table so heavily that the glasses rang again. "This is really too much! Can I no longer eat as I please? As long as you were poor, and I spent my little all in procuring delicacies for you, you found me all very well, and had plenty of fine words for me; but now, that you are rich and I have nothing left, I am not good enough for you, and you take quite another tone with me. Heaven help me! There is no more pleasure in store for me. I really believe you would send me out of the house if I should not succeed in pleasing you. Oh, if I had only known!"
She was silent, because Lena appeared with the roast; but a couple of large tears dropped into the soup-plate which she handed to the servant.
"What exaggerated nonsense!" said Leuthold at last. "Be good enough to carve the meat,--I am hungry. You know I am a respectable man,--slow to adopt harsh measures if they can be avoided. I hope you will not force me to them by stubborn conduct. You will recognize and fulfil the duties which our wealth imposes upon us."
"Duties, duties? I thought that when I was rich I could begin really to enjoy life and do as I pleased; but instead of that I must wear a double face and worry about everything. It is just as if you gave me a new sofa in the place of the old one, but forbade me to lie down upon it for fear of injuring the cover. Of course I should long for the old one, upon which I could stretch myself in comfort whenever I chose."
Leuthold smiled. "You are not forbidden to lie down upon the new sofa. I only ask you to take off your muddy boots when you do so. Do you understand?"
Bertha was so far consoled that she applied herself to devouring the food upon her plate in silence. Her husband regarded her with a strange mixture of humour and discontent.
"You must at least learn to hold your fork in your left hand," he said at last.