fe had begun. And he himself? He felt much
more inclination for work now. Now that he had returned to business he
felt a pleasure he had never experienced before when he saw that they
were successful in their new ventures. He had never been enterprising
before--what was the good? He and his wife had ample for all their
requirements. Of course he had always been glad to hear when they had
done a good stroke of business, but he could not say it had ever
pleased him to make money. He had always found more pleasure in
spending it.

His father had been quite different in that respect. He had never
been so easy-going, and as long as he lived he had always reproached
himself for having let his only son serve as a soldier in a cavalry
regiment. Something of a cavalryman's extravagance had clung to him,
which did not exactly agree with the views of the very respectable
well-to-do merchant of the middle class. And his daughter-in-law? Hm,
the old gentleman did not exactly approve of her either in his heart.
She had too much modern stuff in her head, and Paul had followed her
lead entirely. You could be cultured--why not?--and also take an
interest in art without necessarily having so little understanding for
the real things of life.

This honest man, this merchant of the old stamp and true son of
Berlin, had not had the joy of seeing what his partners now saw with
unbounded astonishment. They had no need to shrug their shoulders at
the man's lack of interest in the business any longer, and make pointed
remarks about the wife who took up his attention so entirely; now he
felt the interest they wished him to have. He was pleased to fall in
with their plans now. He himself seemed to want, nay, even found it
necessary to form new connections, to extend the calm routine of their
business right and left, on all sides. He showed a capacity for
business and became practical all at once. And in the middle of his
calculations, whilst sitting absorbed at his desk, he would catch
himself thinking: "that will be of use to the boy in the future." But
at times this thought could irritate him so much that he would throw
down his pen and jump up angrily from his desk: no, he had only adopted
the child to please his wife, he would not love him.

And yet when he came home to dinner on those delightful afternoons,
on which he could smell the pines round his house and the pure
air still more increased the appetite he had got from his strenuous
wo