His name was Hermann, which is that
of most Germans whom authors bring upon their scene. Like a man who
does nothing frivolously, he was sitting squarely at the banker's
table and eating with that Teutonic appetite so celebrated throughout
Europe, saying, in fact, a conscientious farewell to the cookery of
the great Careme.
To do honor to his guest the master of the house had invited a few
intimate friends, capitalists or merchants, and several agreeable and
pretty women, whose pleasant chatter and frank manners were in harmony
with German cordiality. Really, if you could have seen, as I saw, this
joyous gathering of persons who had drawn in their commercial claws,
and were speculating only on the pleasures of life, you would have
found no cause to hate usurious discounts, or to curse bankruptcies.
Mankind can't always be doing evil. Even in the society of pirates one
might find a few sweet hours during which we could fancy their
sinister craft a pleasure-boat rocking on the deep.
"Before we part, Monsieur Hermann will, I trust, tell one more German
story to terrify us?"
These words were said at dessert by a pale fair girl, who had read, no
doubt, the tales of Hoffmann and the novels of Walter Scott. She was
the only daughter of the banker, a charming young creature whose
education was then being finished at the Gymnase, the plays of which
she adored.
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