Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 128.djvu/582

572 There is not much to wonder at in a poor man's suddenly becoming rich and cutting his old friends. There is very little to wonder at in a great painter, who has become a lion, finding it practically impossible to marry a poor little bourgeoise. He and Elsa were no longer in the same world. What would they all say—what would the baroness say? It was all over between them now.

"And so best, I suppose," he sometimes thought with a sigh.

one thing he had an advantage over many great men—he was not troubled by the ghosts of his humbler days. There was no fear of his being intruded upon by Elsa now, though she had once come to him when he ought to have gone to her.

The long absence of her lover was a confirmation of her worst fears: and at last it was impossible even for her to force herself to believe that she had judged him harshly. It was only too true, too clear, that her short-lived dream of happiness was past and gone.

Not that she spent her time in crying her eyes out. No one saw her shed a tear. Herr Frohmann never had occasion to scold her even for breaking crockery, much less for inattention to his slightest comfort. To all appearance she was as quiet as a mouse and as busy as a bee. Her smiles had gone away with her tears, but she allowed nobody to miss her smile. She did not turn cynic or cry out to all the fates and furies because she had found her trust betrayed—because she shared the common lot in finding the citadel of her life built up upon a shoal of shifting sand. Her heart might break, but neither her strength nor her pride.

"Elsa, my girl," said her father to her one evening when, even in the workshop, he had heard Max Brendel's name spoken of with honour, "I hear great things of that Max of thine. What has become of the fellow? From all I hear he ought to be thinking of speaking to me about the wedding-day."

She crept to him and laid her hand on his shoulder, with the caress that had belonged to her lover in old times. She had been expecting the question to come at list, but was still unprepared with a reply.

"Ah, you think I've been blind, my girl," he said in his rough way, "but I'm not so blind as I seem. I've been waiting for you to speak first, but as you won't I must take the bull by the horns. Max has never been here since he got the prize; and what's more, they say he's to marry the baroness up at Regenstein—they were talking about it to-day. And he's turned bad and wild. Elsa Frohmann, the daughter of old Frohmann the wood-carver, isn't fit for the Herr Professor. Nevermind, my girl—thank God, we're as proud as he; and we won't speak to those who are bad, if he won't speak to those that are poor. And there's as good fish in the river as ever a Max Brendel."

It was one thing to condemn her lover, but it was another thing to hear him condemned.

"Father," she said, "it's true—all's over between Max and me. But it's not his fault, father: how could a great and clever man like him really care for a poor plain, clumsy girl like me? It was all very well while he was poor and unhappy, and had seen nobody but Elsa. But it couldn't last—how could it? It was too sweet a dream; one always wakes, always, from sweet dreams. It must have come to an end," she went on, with the tears at last brimming into her eyes; "and better now than if we had married and he'd found out too late that he could not love me as—I loved him.—Now I must be thy Elsa, thine only, my own father—that's all: I would not have him unhappy for my sake, no, not for all the prizes in the world; and now, I would not leave thee—no, not for him."

"He's a blackguard, that's all, Elsa, and thou art a little fool. But if thou canst forget him, thou art wise. Take off that ring."

"No—not that, father. I must keep my ring."

"It is shameful to wear it longer, if thou art his betrothed no more. Give it me, that I may send it back to the Herr Professor."

"Oh, let me be thy Elsa, father; and I cannot be thy Elsa if I am untrue to my betrothed—to my Max who is dead and gone." At last, for the first time, she broke down: she fell upon her father's neck and cried.

"Who has turned into a scoundrel," he said, gruffly. But he said no more about the ring.

love of excitement seems to have been commonly regarded as a disturbing