Another source of disturbance in Mr. Hahn’s matrimonial relations was his wife’s absolute refusal to appear in the parquet or the proscenium boxes in the theatre.  In this matter her resistance bordered on the heroic; neither threats nor entreaties could move her.

“Law, Julius,” she would say, while the tears streamed down over her plump cheeks, “the parquet and the big boxes are for the gentlefolks, and not for humble people like you and me.  I know my place, Julius, and I don’t want to be the laughing-stock of the town, as I should be, if I went to the opera and sat where my lady the Countess, and the other fine ladies sit.  I should feel like a fool, too, Julius, and I should cry my eyes out when I got home.”

It may easily be conjectured that Mr. Hahn’s mourning covered a very light heart when the dropsy finally carried off this loving but troublesome spouse.  Nor did he make any secret of the fact that her death was rather a relief to him, while on the other hand he gave her full credit for all her excellent qualities.  Fritz, who was in cordial sympathy with his father’s ambition for social eminence, had also learned from him to be ashamed of his mother, and was rather inclined to make light of the sorrow which he actually felt, when he saw the cold earth closing over her.

At the time when he made his summer excursion in the Tyrol, Fritz was a stout blond youth of two and twenty.  His round, sleek face was not badly modelled, but it had neither the rough openness, characteristic of a peasant, nor yet that indefinable finish which only culture can give.  In spite of his jaunty, fashionable attire, you would have put him down at once as belonging to what in the Old World is called “the middle class.”  His blue eyes indicated shrewdness, and his red cheeks habitual devotion to the national beverage.  He was apparently a youth of the sort that Nature is constantly turning out by the thousand—­mere weaker copies of progenitors, who by an unpropitious marriage have enfeebled instead of strengthening the type.  Circumstances might have made anything of him in a small way; for, as his countenance indicated, he had no very pronounced proclivities, either good or bad.  He had spent his boyhood in a gymnasium, where he had had greater success in trading jack-knives than in grappling with Cicero.  He had made two futile attempts to enter the Berlin University, and had settled down to the conviction that he had mistaken his calling, as his tastes were military rather than scholarly; but, as he was too old to rectify this mistake, he had chosen to go to the Tyrol in search of pleasure rather than to the Military Academy in search of distinction.

At the mouth of the great ravine of Dornauberg the travellers paused and dismounted.  Mr. Hahn called the guide, who was following behind with a horse laden with baggage, and with his assistance a choice repast, consisting of all manner of cold curiosities, was served on a large flat rock.  The senior Hahn fell to work with a will and made no pretence of being interested in the sombre magnificence of the Dornauberg, while Fritz found time for an occasional exclamation of rapture, flavored with caviar, Rhine wine, and pate de foie gras.