The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Xii Part 37

COLONEL.

Gray, girl, gray and stormy. Vexation and grief are buzzing round in my head until it is fit to burst. How is the child?

ADELAIDE.

Better. She was wise enough to fall asleep toward morning. Now she is sad, but calm.

COLONEL.

This very calmness annoys me. If she would only once shriek and tear her hair a bit! It would be horrible, but there would be something natural about it. It is this smiling and then turning away to dry secret tears that makes me lose my composure. It is unnatural in my child.

ADELAIDE.

Possibly she knows her father's kind heart better than he does himself; possibly she still has hopes.

COLONEL.

Of what? Of a reconciliation with him? After what has happened a reconciliation between Oldendorf and myself is out of the question.

ADELAIDE (_aside_).

I wonder if he wants me to contradict him!

_Enter_ KORB.

KORB (_to_ ADELAIDE).

The gentleman has come.

ADELAIDE.

I will ring.

[_Exit_ KORB.]

Help me out of a little dilemma. I have to speak with a strange young man who seems in need of help, and I should like to have you stay near me.--May I leave this door open?

[_Points to the door on the left_.]

COLONEL.

That means, I suppose, in plain English, that I am to go in there?

ADELAIDE.

I beg it of you--just for five minutes.

COLONEL.

Very well--if only I don't have to listen.

ADELAIDE.

I do not require it; but you will listen all the same if the conversation happens to interest you.

COLONEL (_smiling_).

In that case I shall come out.

[_Exit to the left_; ADELAIDE _rings_.]

_Enter_ SCHMOCK. KORB _also appears at the entrance, but quickly withdraws_.

SCHMOCK (_with a bow_).

I wish you a good-morning. Are you the lady who sent me her secretary?

ADELAIDE.

Yes. You said you wished to speak to me personally.

SCHMOCK.

Why should the secretary know about it if I want to tell you something? Here are the notes that Senden wrote and that I found in the paper-basket of the _Coriola.n.u.s_. Look them over, and see if they will be of use to the Colonel. What can I do with them? There's nothing to be done with them.

ADELAIDE (_looking through them, reading, in an aside_).

"Here I send you the wretched specimens of style, etc." Incautious and very low-minded! [_Lays them on the table. Aloud_.] At any rate these unimportant notes are better off in my paper-basket than in any one else's. And what, sir, induces you to confide in me?

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Permission Union Deutsch um Vellagssesellsckaft Stuttgart_. LUNCH BUFFET AT KISSENGEN ADOLPH VON MENZEL. ]

SCHMOCK.

I suppose because Bellmaus told me you were a clever person who would choose a good way of telling the Colonel to be on his guard against Senden and against my editor; and the Colonel is a kind man; the other day he ordered a gla.s.s of sweet wine and a salmon sandwich as a lunch for me.

COLONEL (_visible at the door, clasping his hands sympathetically_).

Merciful heavens!

SCHMOCK.

Why should I let him be duped by these people!

ADELAIDE.

Since you did not dislike the lunch, we will see that you get another one.

SCHMOCK.