At the University E-Book

Theodor Storm

• Herausgeber: neobooks
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Deutsch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 105

Beschreibung

I didn't have a sister who could have introduced me to girls my own age, but I went to dance school. It was held twice a week in the hall of the town hall, which was also the mayor's flat. Together with the mayor's son, my most loyal comrade, there were eight of us dancers, all of whom were secondary students at the Latin School in our home town. Only with regard to the dancers did a seemingly insurmountable difficulty initially arise; the eighth professional lady could not be procured.

Leseprobe

Theodor Storm

At the University

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Inhaltsverzeichnis

Titel

At the University

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Impressum neobooks

At the University

At the University

by Theodor Storm

translated by

Thomas Westphal

Chapter 1

I didn't have a sister who could have introduced me to girls my own age, but I went to dance school. It was held twice a week in the hall of the town hall, which was also the mayor's flat. Together with the mayor's son, my most loyal comrade, there were eight of us dancers, all of whom were secondary students at the Latin School in our home town. Only with regard to the dancers did a seemingly insurmountable difficulty initially arise; the eighth professional lady could not be procured.

But Fritz, the mayor, knew what to do. One of his parents' cooks, who had been consulted by the mayoress at all the festive feasts, was married to a mending tailor, a gaunt yellow man with a French name, who preferred to talk big in the pub than to use a needle on his tailor's table. The people lived at the end of the town, where the street faces the castle garden. The narrow little house with the big lime tree in front of it, which almost completely shaded the only window next to the door, was well known to us; we had often walked past it to catch a glimpse of the pretty girl who used to sit behind the reseda and geranium pots at a sewing job and played a not insignificant role in our boyish fantasies. It was the only child of the French tailor, a thirteen-year-old petite girl, whose clothes, too, were kept in great cleanliness by her mother, despite her meagre means. The brownish complexion and the large dark eyes testified to her father's foreign origin; and I still remember that she wore her black hair very low and simply swept down at the temples, which gave the already small head a particularly fine appearance. Fritz and I soon agreed that Leonore Beauregard had to be the eighth lady. It is true that we had to struggle with obstacles, for the other little ladies and "gracious" ladies became very serious and monosyllabic when we dared to communicate our proposal; but the arts of her favourite son had brought the mayoress on our side, and before the cheerful and resolute nature of this courageous woman neither the wrinkled noses of the little ladies nor, what was more dangerous, the certain objections of their mothers were able to withstand.

So one afternoon we were on our way to the little house of the French tailor. - Otherwise I had often regretted that my companionship with the son of our house carpenter, whose sister had almost daily intercourse with the little Beauregard, had ended; I had also thought of renewing the acquaintance and of being instructed in carpentry in his father's workshop; for Christoph was otherwise an honest boy and by no means fallen on his head; Only that he had a peculiar hatred for the pupils of the scholastic school, "the Latins", as he said with unpleasant emphasis; he also used to fight his way through with the Latins from time to time on the parade ground with the help of like-minded friends, without, however, achieving an end to the war through these battles.

Now I didn't need that mediation, for we were already in front of the house, walking over the yellow leaves of the lime tree, which the November storm had swept down, towards the low front door. At the ringing of the bell, Mrs. Beauregard came to meet us from the kitchen, and after carefully drying her hands on her white apron, we were coerced into the little sitting-room.

It was difficult to recognise in this blond, stocky woman the mother of the delicate, dark girl who jumped up from her sewing when we entered and then leaned against the casket with an expression between curiosity and embarrassment. While Fritz was making our request, a bright red flashed across her face, and I saw her eyes light up and widen; but when her mother remained silent and shook her head thoughtfully, she quietly stole away behind her back and disappeared through a door that seemed to lead into the bedchamber. - I glanced at the table in front of which she had been sitting when we entered. Among the ribbons and other girly things there was a pair of narrow shoes, finished except for the edging, with which, it seemed, the girl had just been occupied. The things were disturbingly small, and my boyish imagination never ceased to picture the little feet that presumably belonged there; I felt as if I could already see them dancing around mine, I might have asked them to stand still for just a moment; but they were there and gone again, teasing me incessantly.

During this visionary reverie, Mrs. Beauregard had begun to exchange reasons and counter-reasons with my friend, to whom I had to leave the floor, as was only fair, until the matter, after the name of the mayor had also been put on the scales, tilted more and more in our favour.

"And there are the dancing shoes already!" said Fritz. "Is Mr Beauregard also a shoemaker?"

The woman shook her head. "You know very well, Fritz, that he is, alas, a milliner! He had to repair your pocket watch in the spring! - He made the child's little shoes in advance for Christmas."

"Well, Margret, and my mother has a whole trunk full of beautiful old dresses; you can make new ones out of them for the Lore; each one will do for her at least a quarter of a dozen times over."

The old woman smiled; but she became serious again. "I don't know," she said, "it shouldn't be; but if the Lady Mayoress means it!"

Meanwhile the girl had re-entered and stood beside her mother. It did not escape my notice that she had put on a little white wreath; nor did I think I had seen the earrings with the little red coral buttons on her earlier.

"What do you think, Lore?" said Fritz, while her mother still looked thoughtful and undecided, "would you like to dance with us?"

She did not answer; but she grasped the mother round the neck with both hands and whispered to her, while her countenance became covered with a deeper and deeper red.

"Fritz," said the old woman, gently resisting the impetuous girl, "I wish you had told me the story alone first; nothing would have come of it then. So you have set the girl on my neck for once; I know it already, she won't let me rest!" -

So we had won. "Wednesday evening at seven o'clock!" Fritz called as we left; then, accompanied by mother and daughter to the door, we stepped out of the house. - When we looked around for a while, only our young friend was still standing there; she nodded at us a few times and then quickly ran back into the house.

Chapter 2

The next day, as Fritz confided to me, Mrs Beauregard had been to his mother's house, rummaged around in the wardrobe with her for some time and then left the house with a well-filled parcel.

Wednesday evening was the dance lesson. I had only got the varnished shoes with steel buckles and the new jacket from the cobbler and tailor at the last moment and found everything already assembled when I stepped into the hall. My comrades were standing at the window around the old dance master, who was strumming his fingers on his violin while accepting the wishes of his young scholars. Our dancers walked up and down the hall in groups, their arms intertwined.

Leonore was not among them; she stood alone not far from the door and glared at the lively chattering girls, who seemed to feel so free and unhindered in the strange noble house and did not care about her at all.

Nothing is more selfish and merciless than youth. But immediately after me the mayoress had entered. After greeting the young company and, as Fritz put it, casting one of her general glances around the hall, she strode up to Lore and took her by the hand. "To make the couples fit together!" she said to the dancing master. "Shunt the cavaliers once!" - Then, while the latter obeyed her order, she turned to the girls and began the same procedure with them. The blonde postmaster's daughter was the longest, almost a head taller than all the others. She was lined up against the wall opposite us; not then was the matter in doubt. "I don't know, Charlott'," said the mayoress, "you or Lore! I don't seem to care much about you!"

The person addressed, the daughter of the chamberlain and bailiff, retirred a step. "Mamsell Lore will probably be the taller one," she said lightly.

"Well, little madam," cried my friend's mother, "come out of your corner and have a little chat with Mamsell Lore!"

And the little lady had to come out and compete dos-à-dos with the tailor's daughter; but - I kept a sharp eye on it - she still knew how to do it in such a way that she barely touched the dark head of the craftsman's daughter with hers.

The young lady was dressed in light colours; Lenore wore a black and red striped woollen dress, with a white pile scarf around her neck. The clothes were almost too dark; she looked strange; but it suited her well.

The mayor eyed the two girls. "Charlott," she said, "you've always been the champion; be careful she doesn't outshine you; she looks like it to me."

I felt as if I saw the girl's black eyes flash at these words.

After a while, the pairs were formed. I was second in the line of boys, and Lore became my lady. She smiled as she placed her hand in mine. "We want to dance them around and around!" I said - and we kept our word. First of all, a mazurka was to be practised, and already at the end of this first lesson, because one tour wouldn't go, our old maestro tapped the violin lid with his bow: "Little Beauregard! Mr. Philipp! Go ahead once!" And while he played and sang the melody at the same time, we danced - it was no art to dance with her, I don't think anyone could have failed; but the old gentleman shouted one enthusiastic "Bravo!" after another, and the brave Frau Bürgermeisterin leaned far back in her sofa, smiling with pleasure, where she had sat as an attentive spectator since the beginning of the lesson.

Miss Charlotte had fallen to my friend Fritz as a partner, and her lively nature, as I was pleased to notice, soon seemed to make him forget his initial enthusiasm for the tailor's daughter. But as I now regarded the latter as my property, so to speak, I was jealous of my lady's beauty and elegance, and a lingering glance from her impeccably dressed rival, which my eyes had followed, had taught me that the protector of the beautiful girl had nevertheless not considered one thing sufficiently. The gloves were too big for those slender hands; they had obviously already been washed.

The next morning, as soon as I came out of class, I couldn't rest. I made my way over the cupboard where my tin money box was kept and dug and shook until I had worked a hard thaler out of the crevice next to the red cloth tongue. Then I ran into a shop. - "I wanted little gloves!" I said, not without trepidation.

The shop boy cast an expert glance at my hand. "Number six!" he said as he placed the box of gloves on the table. "Give me number five!" I remarked meekly.

"Number five? - I guess it won't fit!" and he started to stretch the gloves over my hand.