“Regine, I always thought you a most rational woman, but in this matter you have no sense at all.  The theatre and every one connected with it has always been proscribed by you, and yet you know absolutely nothing about it.  It was no easy matter for the doctor to allow Marietta to go on the stage.  That I know, for we talked it over frequently.  It is not for us who sit in warm nests and can provide lavishly for our children, to sit in judgment upon other parents who earn their daily food with labor and bitter care.  Volkmar, though seventy years of age, works day and night, but his practice brings him in little, for this is a poor, sparsely settled neighborhood, and after his death Marietta will have nothing.”

“Then he should have made a teacher or a companion of her; that is a decent way to earn one’s bread.”

“God preserve me from bread so earned.  No one knows how the poor thing would be used and ill treated.  If I had a child who was dearer to me than life, whose fate it was to earn her own living, and I was told that she would have a brilliant future, and put money in her purse if she went on the stage, I would say ‘go!’ you may depend upon it.”

This avowal seemed to take the ground from under Regine’s feet.  She stood for a moment gazing at him with frightened face.  Then she said, solemnly: 

“Moritz—­it makes me shudder to hear you.”

“Well, if it gives you pleasure to shudder, don’t stop on my account.  But when Marietta comes as usual to Fuerstenstein, I will not send her back, neither shall I raise any objection if Toni goes to her at Waldhofen.  So we need say nothing more about it.”

Then Herr von Schoenau cried out to his daughter, who was still pounding away, that the window-panes were rattling and the strings of the piano would be ruined.  He did not really care a particle how much noise she made, neither did her aunt, who answered him now, promptly and sharply: 

“Well, there’s one comfort at least, Toni will soon be married.  Then this friendship with the theatrical prodigy will be at an end.  I give you my word for it, that no such guests will be allowed within the walls of Burgsdorf, and Willibald will not permit his young wife to keep up any correspondence either.”

“That means that you will not permit it,” sneered the head forester.  “There are no yeas or nays in poor Will’s life, he is only the obedient servant of his dear mother.  It is really remarkable how you can keep the fellow, a man grown and soon to be a husband, so cowed down and under the lash.”

Frau von Eschenhagen threw her head back, more insulted than ever now.

“I believe I understand my responsibilities better than you.  Perhaps you would like to reprove me for educating my son to honor and love his parents?”