over the man at these words.  His mouth, which he had opened to heap abuse upon me, remained open, his eyes still looked threatening, but about the lower part of his face a smile began to play which spread more and more.  The girl remained indifferent and continued in her stooping posture.  Without interrupting her work, she pushed her loose hair back behind her ears.  ’The son of the Court Councilor!’ finally exclaimed the old man, from whose face the clouds had entirely disappeared.  ’Won’t you make yourself comfortable, sir?  Barbara, bring a chair!’ The girl stirred reluctantly on hers.  ’Never mind, you sneak!’ he said, taking a basket from a stool and wiping the dust from the latter with his handkerchief.  ‘This is a great honor,’ he continued.  ’Has His Honor, the Councilor—­I mean His Honor’s son, also taken up music?  Perhaps you sing like my daughter, or rather quite differently, from notes and according to rule?’ I told him that nature had not gifted me with a voice.  ’Oh, perhaps you play the piano, as fashionable people do?’ I told him I played the violin.  ’I used to scratch on the fiddle myself when I was a boy,’ he said.  At the word ‘scratch’ I involuntarily looked at the girl and saw a mocking smile on her lips, which annoyed me greatly.

“‘You ought to take an interest in the girl, that is, in her music,’ he continued.  ’She has a good voice, and possesses other good qualities; but refinement—­good heavens, where should she get it?’ So saying, he repeatedly rubbed the thumb and forefinger of his right hand together.  I was quite confused at being undeservedly credited with such a considerable knowledge of music, and was just on the point of explaining the true state of affairs, when some one passing the store called in ‘Good evening, all!’ I started, for it was the voice of one of our servants.  The grocer had also recognized it.  Putting out the tip of his tongue and raising his shoulders, he whispered:  ’It was one of the servants of His Honor, your father, but he couldn’t recognize you, because you were standing with your back to the door.’  This was so, to be sure, but nevertheless the feeling of doing something on the sly, something wrong, affected me painfully.  I managed to mumble a few words of parting, and went out.  I should even have left the song behind had not the old man run into the street after me and pressed it into my hand.

“I reached my room and awaited developments.  And I didn’t have to wait long.  The servant had recognized me after all.  A few days later my father’s private secretary looked me up in my room and announced that I was to leave my home.  All my remonstrances were in vain.  A little room had been rented for me in a distant suburb and thus I was completely banished from my family.  Nor did I see my singer again.  She had been forbidden to vend her cakes in the chancery, and I couldn’t make up my mind to visit her father’s store, since I knew that this would displease mine.  Once, when accidentally I met the old grocer on the street, he even turned away from me with an angry expression, and I was stunned.  And so I got out my violin and played and practised, being frequently alone half the day.