“I shall write to his mother,” Angelika
said. “She shall know all about it, so
that she may understand for what he is responsible.”
This they thought reasonable, and Angelika sat down
and wrote. She frequently showed agitation, but
she went on quickly, steadily, sheet after sheet.
Just then came a ring—a messenger with a
letter. The maid brought it in. Her mistress
was about to take it, but it was not for her; it was
for Angelika—they both recognised Rafael’s
careless handwriting.
Angelika opened it—grew crimson; for he
wrote that the result of his most serious considerations
was, that neither she nor her children should be injured
by him. He was an honourable man who would bear
his own responsibilities, not let others be burdened
by them.
Angelika handed the letter to her friend, then tore
up the one which she had been writing, and left the
house.
Her friend stood thinking to herself—The
good that is in us must go bail for the evil, so we
must rest and be satisfied.
The discovery which she had made had often been made
before, but it was none the less true.
The next day they were married. That night, long
after his wife had fallen into her usual healthy sleep,
Rafael thought sorrowfully of his lost Paradise.
He could not sleep. As he lay there he seemed
to look out over a meadow, which had no springtime,
and therefore no flowers. He retraced the events
of the past day. His would be a marred life which
had never known the sweet joys of courtship.
Angelika did not share his beliefs. She was a
stern realist, a sneering sceptic, in the most literal
sense a cynic.
Her even breathing, her regular features, seemed to
answer him. “Hey-dey, my boy, we shall
be merry for a thousand years! Better sleep now,
you will need sleep if you mean to try which of us
is the stronger.”
The next day their marriage was the marvel of the
town and neighbourhood.
“Just like his mother!” people exclaimed;
“what promise there was in her! She might
have chosen so as to have been now in one of the best
positions in the country—when, lo and behold!
she went and made the most idiotic marriage.
The most idiotic? No, the son’s is more
idiotic still.” And so on and so forth.
Most people seem naturally impelled to exalt the hero
of the hour higher than they themselves intend, and
when a reaction comes, to decry him in an equal degree.
Few people see with their own eyes, and on special
occasions even magnifying or diminishing glasses are
called into play with most amusing results.
“Rafael Kaas a handsome fellow?—well,
yes, but too big, too fair, no repose, altogether
too restless. Rich? He? He has not a
stiver! The savings eaten up long ago, nothing
coming in, they have been encroaching on their capital
for some time; and the beds of cement stone—who
the deuce would join with him in any large undertaking?
They talk about his gifts, his genius even; but is
he very highly gifted? Is it anything more than
what he has acquired? The saving of motive power
at the factory? Was that anything more than a
mere repetition of what he had done before?—and
that, of course, only what he had seen elsewhere.”
