Conrad Bolanden - The Progressionists, and Angela.

"I do not understand you, most mysterious brother!"

"You do not understand me, and yet you blush like the skies before a rainstorm! What means the vermilion of those cheeks, if you do not understand?"

"I blush, first, on account of my limited understanding, which cannot grasp your philosophy; and, secondly, because I am amazed at the monstrous figures of your language."

"Then I shall have to speak without figures and similes upon a subject which loses a great deal in the light of bare reality, which, I might indeed say, loses all, dissolves into vapor, like will-o'-the-wisps and cloud phantoms before the rising sun. I hardly know how to mention the subject without figures, I can hardly handle it except with poetic figures," exclaimed he gaily, seating himself in Louise's rocking-chair, rocking himself. "Speaking in the commonest prose, my remarks refer to the last victim immolated to your highness-to the last brand kindled by the fire of your eyes. To talk quite broadly, I mean the millionaire and landholder Seraphin Gerlach, who is head and ears in love with you. Considered from a business and solid point of view, it is exceedingly flattering for the banker's brother to see his sister adored by so considerable a sum of money."

"Madman, you profane the noblest feelings of the heart," she chidingly said, with a smile.

"I am a man of business, my dear child, and am acquainted with no sanctuary but the exchange. Relations of a tender nature, noble feelings of the heart, lying as they do without the domain of speculation, are to me something incomprehensible and not at all desirable. On the other hand, I entertain for two millions of money a most prodigious sympathy, and a love that casts the flames of all your heroes and heroines of romance into the shade. Meanwhile, my sweet little sister, there are two aspects to everything. An alliance between our house and two millions of florins claims admiration, 'tis true; yet it is accompanied with difficulties which require serious reflection." The banker actually ceased rocking and grew serious.

"Might I ask a solution of your enigma?"

"All jesting aside, Louise, this alliance is not altogether free from risks," answered he. "Just consider the contrast between yourself and Seraphin Gerlach's good nature is touching, and his credulous simplicity is calculated to excite apprehension. Guided, imposed upon, entirely bewitched by religious phantasms, he gropes about in the darkness of superstition. You, on the contrary, sneer at what Seraphin cherishes as holy, and despise such religious nonsense. Reflect now upon the enormous contrast between yourself and the gentleman whom fate and your father's shrewdness have selected for your husband. Honestly, I am in dread. I am already beginning to dream of divorce and every possible tale of scandal, which would not be precisely propitious for our firm."

"What contradictions!" exclaimed the beauty with self-reliance. "You just a moment ago announced my triumph over Seraphin, and now you proclaim my defeat."

"Your defeat! Not at all! But I apprehend wrangling and discord in your married life."

"Wrangling and discord because Seraphin loves me?"

"No-not exactly-but because he is a believer and you are an unbeliever; in short, because he does not share your aims and views."

"How short-sighted you are! As you conceive of it, love is not a passion; at most, only, a cool mood which cannot be modified by the lovers themselves. Your apprehension would be well grounded concerning that kind of love. But suppose love were something quite different? Suppose it were a passion, a glowing, dazzling, omnipotent passion, and that Seraphin really loved me, do you think that I would not skilfully and prudently take advantage of this passion? Cannot a woman exert a decisive and directing influence over the husband who loves her tenderly? I have no fears because I do not view love with the eyes of a trader. I hope and trust with the adjurations of love to expel from Seraphin all superstitious spirits."

"How sly! Surely nothing can surpass a daughter of Eve in the matter of seductive arts!" exclaimed he, laughing. "Hem-yes, indeed, after what I have seen to-day, it is plain that the Adam Seraphin will taste of the forbidden fruit of ripened knowledge, persuaded by this tenderly beloved Eve. Look at him: there he wanders in the shade of the garden, sighing to the rose-bushes, dreaming, of your majesty, and little suspecting that he is threatened with conversion and redemption from the kingdom of darkness."

Hans Shund returned home from business in high feather. Something unusual must have happened him, for his behavior was exceptional. Standing before his desk, he mechanically drew various papers from his pockets, and laid them in different drawers and pigeon-holes. The mechanical manner of his behavior was what was exceptional, for usually Hans Shund bestowed particular attention upon certain papers; his soul's life was in those papers. Moreover, on the present occasion, he kept shaking his head as if astonishment would not suffer him to remain quiet. Yet habitually Hans Shund never shook his head, for that proceeding betrays interior emotion, and Shund's neck was as hardened and stiff as his usurer's soul. The other exceptional feature of his behavior was a continuous growing, which at length waxed into a genuine soliloquy. But Hans Shund was never known to talk to himself, for talking to one's self indicates a kindly disposition, whilst Shund had no disposition whatever, as they maintain who knew him; or, if he had ever had one, it had smouldered into a hard, impenetrable crust of slag.

"Strange-remarkably strange!" said he. "Hem! what can it mean? How am I to account for it? Has the usurer undergone a transformation during the night?" And a hideous grin distorted his face. "Am I metamorphosed, am I enchanted, or am I myself an enchanter? Unaccountable, marvellous, unheard of!"

The papers had been locked up in the desk. A secret power urged him up and down the room, and finally into the adjoining sitting-room, where Mrs. Shund, a pale, careworn lady, sat near a sewing-stand, intent on her lonely occupation.

"Wife, queer things have befallen me. Only think, all the city notables have raised their hats to your humble servant, and have saluted me in a friendly, almost an obsequious manner. And this has happened to me to-day-to me, the hated and despised usurer! Isn't that quite amazing? Even the city regent, Schwefel's son, took off his hat, and bowed as if I were some live grandee. How do you explain that prodigy?"

The careworn woman kept on sewing without raising her head.

"Why don't you answer me, wife? Don't you find that most astonishing?"

"I am incapable of being astonished, since grief and care have so filled my heart that no room is left in it for feelings of any other kind."

"Well, well! what is up again?" asked he, with curiosity.

She drew a letter written in a female hand from one of the drawers of the sewing-stand.

"Read this, villain!"

Hastily snatching the letter, he began to read.

"Hem," growled he indifferently. "The drab complains of being neglected, of not getting any money from me. That should not be a cause of rage for you, I should think. The drab is brazen enough to write to you to reveal my weaknesses, all with the amicable intention of getting up a thundergust in our matrimonial heaven. Do learn sense, wife, and stop noticing my secret enjoyments."

"Fie, villain. Fie upon you, shameless wretch!" cried she, trembling in every limb.

"Listen to me, wife! Above all things, let us not have a scene, an unnecessary row," interrupted he. "You know how fruitless are your censures. Don't pester me with your stale lectures on morals."

"Nearly every month I get a letter of that sort written in the most disreputable purlieus of the town, and addressed to my husband. It is revolting! Am I to keep silent, shameless man- I your wedded wife? Am I to be silent in presence of such infamous deeds?"