and ridiculing and mocking me before the customers.  If I bowed to a customer or recommended myself to his kind consideration, she would say brusquely, even before he had left the store, ’The goods carry their own recommendation,’ and turn her back upon me.  At other times, however, she was all kindness; she listened to me when I told her what was going on in the city, or when I spoke of my early years, or of the business of the chancery, where we had first met.  But at such times she let me do all the talking and expressed her approval or—­as happened more frequently—­her disapproval only by casual words.

“We never spoke of music or singing.  In the first place, she believed one should either sing or keep quiet, that there was no sense in talking about it.  But it was not possible to do any singing—­the store was not the proper place for it, and the rear room, which she occupied with her father, I was not allowed to enter.  Once, however, when I entered unnoticed, she was standing on tip-toe, her back turned toward me, with her hands raised above her head, groping along one of the upper shelves as if looking for something.  At the same time she was singing softly to herself—­it was the song, my song!  She was warbling like a hedge-sparrow when it bathes its breast in the brook, tosses its head, ruffles its feathers, and smoothes them again with its little beak.  I seemed to be walking in a green meadow.  I crept nearer and nearer, and was so close that the melody seemed no longer to come from without, but out of my own breast—­a song of souls.  I was unable to contain myself any longer, and as she stood there straining forward, her shoulders thrown slightly back towards me, I threw both arms around her body.  But then the storm broke.  She whirled around like a top.  Her face livid with rage, she stood before me; her hand twitched, and before I could utter a word of apology, the blow came.

“As I have said before, my colleagues in the chancery used to tell a story of a box on the ear, which Barbara, when she was still vending cakes, had dealt out to an impertinent fellow.  What they then said of the strength of this rather small girl and of the power of her hand, seemed greatly and humorously exaggerated.  But it was a fact; her strength was tremendous.  I stood as though I had been struck by a thunderbolt.  The lights were dancing before my eyes, but they were the lights of heaven.  It seemed like sun, moon and stars, like angels playing hide-and-seek and singing at the same time.  I had visions; I was entranced.  She, however, scarcely less astonished than I, passed her hand gently over the place she had struck.  ’I’m afraid I struck more violently than I intended,’ she said, and, like a second thunderbolt, I suddenly felt her warm breath and her lips upon my cheeks.  She kissed me—­only gently, but it was a kiss, a kiss upon this very cheek.”  As he said this, the old man put his hand to his cheek, and tears came to his eyes.  “What happened after that I do not know,” he continued.  “I only remember that I rushed toward her and that she ran into the sitting room and threw herself against the glass door, while I pushed against it from the other side.  As she pressed forward with all her might against the glass panel, I took courage, dear sir, and returned her kiss with great fervor—­through the glass!