Page:Vanity Fair 1848.djvu/696

 persecutions of her aristocratic relatives, and the falling away of her husband. (Becky did not abuse him. She spoke rather in sorrow than in anger. She had loved him only too fondly: and was he not the father of her boy?) And as for the separation-scene from the child, while Becky was reciting it, Emmy retired altogether behind her pocket handkerchief, so that the consummate little tragedian must have been charmed to see the effect which her performance produced on her audience.

Whilst the ladies were carrying on their conversation, Amelia's constant escort, the Major, who, of course, did not wish to interrupt their conference, and finding himself rather tired of creaking about the narrow stair passage of which the roof brushed the nap from his hat, descended to the ground-floor of the house and into the great room common to all the frequenters of the Elephant, out of which the stair led. This apartment is always in a fume of smoke, and liberally sprinkled with beer. On a dirty table stand scores of corresponding brass-candlesticks with tallow candles for the lodgers, whose keys hang up in rows over the candles. Emmy had passed blushing through the room anon, where all sorts of people were collected; Tyrolese glove-sellers and Danubian linen-merchants, with their packs; students recruiting themselves with butterbrods and meat; idlers, playing cards or dominoes on the sloppy, beery tables; tumblers refreshing during the cessation of their performances;—in a word, all the fumum and strepikis of a German inn in fair time. The waiter brought the Major a mug of beer, as a matter of course; and he took out a cigar, and amused himself with that pernicious vegetable and a newspaper until his charge should come down to claim him.

Max and Fritz came presently down stairs, their caps on one side, their spurs jingling, their pipes splendid with coats-of-arms and full-blown tassels; and they hung up the key of No. 90 on the board, and called for the ration of butterbrod and beer. The pair sate down by the Major, and fell into a conversation of which he could not help hearing somewhat. It was mainly about "Fuchs" and "Philister," and duels and drinking-bouts at the neighbouring University of Schoppenhausen, from which renowned seat of learning they had just come in the Eilwagen, with Becky, as it appeared, by their side, and in order to be present at the bridal fetes at Pumpernickel.

"The little Englanderinn seems to be en bays de gonnoissance," said Max, who knew the French language, to Fritz, his comrade. "After the fat grandfather went away, there came a pretty little compatriot. I heard them chattering and whimpering together in the little woman's chamber." "We must take the tickets for her concert," Fritz said. "Hast thou any money, Max?"

"Bah," said the other, "the concert is a concert in nubibus. Hans said that she advertised one at Leipzic: and the Burschen took many tickets. But she went off without singing. She said in the coach yesterday that her pianist had fallen ill at Dresden. She cannot sing, it is my belief: her voice is as cracked as thine, thou beer-soaking Benowner!"

"It is cracked; I heard her trying out of her window a schrecklich English ballad, called 'De Rose upon de Balgony.'"

"Saufen und singen go not together," observed Fritz with the red nose,