Effi
said: "That is right, Roswitha. He will be pleased with all the green
when he comes back tomorrow. I wonder whether I should go out again
today? Dr. Hannemann insists upon it and is continually saying I do
not take it seriously enough, otherwise I should certainly be looking
better. But I have no real desire today; it is drizzling and the sky
is so gray."
"I will fetch her Ladyship's raincoat."
"Do so, but don't come for me today; we should not meet anyhow," and
she laughed. "Really, Roswitha, you are not a bit good at finding. And
I don't want to have you catch a cold all for nothing."
So Roswitha remained at home and, as Annie was sleeping, went over to
chat with Mrs. Kruse. "Dear Mrs. Kruse," she said, "you were going to
tell me about the Chinaman. Yesterday Johanna interrupted you. She
always puts on such airs, and such a story would not interest her. But
I believe there was, after all, something in it, I mean the story of
the Chinaman and Thomsen's niece, if she was not his granddaughter."
Mrs. Kruse nodded.
Roswitha continued: "Either it was an unhappy love"--Mrs. Kruse nodded
again--"or it may have been a happy one, and the Chinaman was simply
unable to endure the sudden termination of it. For the Chinese are
human, like the rest of us, and everything is doubtless the same with
them as with us."
"Everything," assured Mrs. Kruse, who was about to corroborate it by
her story, when her husband entered and said: "Mother, you might give
me the bottle of leather varnish.
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