Frau von Eschenhagen had listened to this reasonable explanation without unbending in the least. She now said spitefully:
"Respectable and honest in a theatre! Every one knows well enough what goes on in such iniquitous places; but you seem to take it as lightly as does Dr. Volkmar, who for that matter looks honest and venerable enough with his open face and long white hair. How he can send a soul entrusted to his care, his own flesh and blood at that, on to certain destruction, is beyond my comprehension."
"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 Fürstenstein, 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 Schönau 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: