Part 54 (1/2)
”And you believe it?”
Barnewitz shrugged his shoulders.
”I shouldn't like to hurt your feelings, Arthur; but I cannot deny it that the way your wife acts looks very suspicious to me. I should not wonder, and no one in our circle would wonder, if she had some little _liaison_, and I rather think I know the person.”
”I insist upon it that you tell me all you know,” said Cloten, with great pathos.
”Do you recollect the party at my house last summer? But of course you do, for we came near killing each other on that occasion. Ha, ha, ha!
Well, on that evening already your wife began to flirt with that confounded fool--that Doctor Stein--in a way which struck everybody, and me too. But I had totally forgotten the whole affair till I was reminded of it yesterday. You recollect I had left Stilow's because, to tell the truth, the wine was too bad, and I was very thirsty. I found in my way to the city cellars, where the company is low enough but the wine excellent. There were a dozen people--authors, actors, and such stuff--sitting round a table and drinking; among them our old friend Timm the surveyor, who talked very big. I sat down at some distance, ordered a few dozen oysters and a bottle of champagne, and listened, because I could not help listening. They talked, heaven knows what stuff. I did not understand a word, and was just thinking what a lot of sheep they all were, and my eyes were beginning to be heavy, when I suddenly heard somebody mention your name, or rather your wife's name.
Of course, I was wide awake in a moment. 'Who is she?' asked somebody.
'A wonderful creature,' said Timm. 'Well, and friend Stein is in love with her.' 'That's it!' 'What a fellow--that man Stein!' 'How did he get hold of her?' 'Oh, that is a long story!' said Timm; and then they put their heads together and talked so low that I could not hear the rest. At all events they laughed like madmen, and I had a great mind to pitch a few bottles at their heads.”
”Why didn't you do it?” asked Cloten, angrily.
”I do not like to get into trouble in a strange establishment; I have had to pay for it often enough,” replied the philosophic n.o.bleman, pouring the rest of the bottle into his gla.s.s.
Then followed a pause, after which Cloten cried out with much vehemence: ”I don't believe a word of it.”
Barnewitz shrugged his shoulders.
”That's the best for you to do.”
”Don't say so! I won't have it!” exclaimed Cloten, furiously.
”I only say what the world says,” replied Barnewitz, sipping his wine leisurely.
”And you think the world says nothing about you?” asked Cloten, ironically.
”What do they say about me?” cried Barnewitz, starting up. ”---- the fellow who dares say a word; and I think you, of all men, ought to be most careful not to open your mouth.”
”Careful or not, I don't see why I should not talk as well as you.”
”What! a fellow like you?” said Barnewitz, thrusting his hands into his pockets with an air of contempt ”I suppose you think you are wonderfully successful with the s.e.x?”
Who knows what serious consequences might have arisen from this word-combat if the door of the billiard-room had not opened just then to admit Professor Jager, who crept in cautiously, after having first reconnoitred the room through his round gla.s.ses.
Professor Jager's appearance was never specially inviting, but on this evening there was something peculiarly unpleasant about the man's pale face. His stereotyped smile, and the drooping corners of the mouth, contrasted with his effort to give an air of solemnity to his forehead, and to look as melancholy as possible through his spectacles, so that he appeared on the whole not unlike a black tom cat who glides purring and with raised back around a person's leg, preparing to scratch his hands the next moment furiously.
Thus he drew near to the two n.o.blemen, made a very low bow, and said:
”I beg ten thousand pardons if I am disturbing the _entente cordiale_ of two bosom friends, but----”
”Come here, professor,” said Barnewitz, who welcomed the interruption; ”join us in a gla.s.s of Pichon. Waiter! another----”
”Pray, don't; many thanks. Regret infinitely that I should have interrupted you in your cozy talk; but I heard at your house, Baron Cloten, that I should find you here, and a matter of importance which I had to communicate----”
”Don't mind me, gentlemen,” said Barnewitz. ”I'll go into the reading-room till you have done.”
”Pray, pray; I have only two words----”