harm. What is it you reproach him with? Suppose he has outstripped me in business, and even now and then got ahead of me in some public affair? That only means he is a better business man and a cleverer politician than I am.—There’s no reason at all for you to laugh in that scornful way.——But to come back to the house. The truth is, it has lost most of its old significance for us—that has gradually passed over to mine. I say this to console you in advance; on the other hand, it is plain why Consul Hagenström is thinking of buying. These people have come up in the world, their family is growing, they have married into the Möllendorpf family, and become equal to the best in money and position. But so far, there has been something lacking, the outward sign of their position, which they were evidently willing to do without: the historic consecration—the legitimization, so to speak. But now they seem to have made up their minds to have that too; and some of it they will get by moving into a house like this one. You wait and see: mark my words, the Consul will preserve everything as much as possible as it is, he will even keep the ‘Dominus providebit’ over the door—though, to do him justice, it hasn’t been the Lord at all, but Hermann Hagenström himself, single-handed, that has put the family and the firm where they are!”
“Bravo, Tom! Oh, it does do me good to hear you say something spiteful about them once in a while! That’s really all I want! Oh, if I only had your head! Wouldn’t I just give it to him! But there you stand—”
“You see, my head doesn’t really do me much good.”
“There you stand, I say, with that awful calmness, which I simply don’t understand at all, and tell me how Hermann Hagenström does things. Ah, you may talk as you like, but you have a heart in your body, the same as I have myself, and I simply don’t believe you feel as calm inside as you make out. All the things you say are nothing but your own efforts to console yourself.”
“Now, Tony, you are getting pert. What I do is all you
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