autiful.
The old song came into my head, which a poet puts into the mouth of his
old harpist:

"'I once was young and fair,
But my beauty's gone--ah, where?
On my cheeks were roses red,
And bright curls upon my head.
When I was young and fair!
When I was young and fair!'

"I did not dispute her pretended forty years, and she now unrolled
before my eyes a phase of life so varied and irregular, and yet again so
full of the poetry of a vagabond existence, that Father Goethe would
surely have been glad to have it to insert in 'Wilhelm Meister.' To make
a short story of it, Professor Mattoni had really loved _her_, when, in
consequence of a mood, to her inexplicable, he transferred his affection
to her fellow-actress. 'I was senseless from pain, Mademoiselle,' she
threw in, 'but I governed myself. I became the most indispensable friend
of Mattoni's young wife.'

"She now described this person as a dreamy creature, beautiful as a
picture but quite uneducated; and the Professor, as an imperious man,
who, when he failed to find in his wife the companionship of his soul's
creation, treated her worse than a servant-maid. '_En verite_,
Mademoiselle, she was stupid; the thickest wall would have--' And she
made a gesture, as if to test with _her_ head whether the walls at
Buetze were a match for it. 'Oh, the men, even the wisest and best of
them are blinded when they love, Mademoiselle! He had received his
punishment for his breach of faith toward me.'

"Then followed a description of the Mattoni household, in which Isabella
Pfannenschmidt, as my informant was called, heartily interested herself.
She became housekeeper for Frau Mattoni, who read novels all day long or
played with her cat. The women lived in a little back room, and the
Professor occupied two rooms as formerly. They received from him such
scanty means of support that often they knew not how to satisfy their
hunger. The troupe with which Isabella Pfannenschmidt had an engagement
went away from Berlin, but she could not go with them: 'for,
Mademoiselle, she and the child would have perished in dirt and misery;
she was a person who would go hungry if food were not put right under
her nose, rather than get up from her lazy position on the sofa, and the
Professor took all his meals at a restaurant. He did not want people to
find out that he had a wife and child, anyway. We dared not stir if any
one was with him. Susanna's first frock was made