Bustling, red-cheeked Frau Knapf! This was why I had
never had a glimpse of her. Always, she got no time.
For while Herr Knapf, dapper and genial, welcomed
new-comers, chatted with the diners, poured a glass
of foaming Doppel-brau for Herr Weber or, dexterously
carved fowl for the aborigines' table, Frau Knapf was
making the wheels go round. I discovered that it was she
who bakes the melting, golden German Pfannkuchen on
Sunday mornings; she it is who fries the crisp and
hissing Wienerschnitzel; she it is who prepares the plump
ducklings, and the thick gravies, and the steaming lentil
soup and the rosy sausages nestling coyly in their bed of
sauerkraut. All the week Frau Knapf bakes and broils and
stews, her rosy cheeks taking on a twinkling crimson from
the fire over which she bends. But on Sunday night Frau
Knapf sheds her huge apron and rolls down the sleeves
from her plump arms. On Sunday evening she leaves pots
and pans and cooking, and is a transformed Frau Knapf.
Then does she don a bright blue silk waist and a velvet
coat that is dripping with jet, and a black bonnet on
which are perched palpitating birds and weary-looking
plumes. Then she and Herr Knapf walk comfortably down to
the Pabst theater to see the German play by the German
stock company. They applaud their favorite stout, blond,
German comedienne as she romps through the acts of a
sprightly German comedy, and after the play they go to
their favorite Wein-stube around the corner. There they
have sardellen and cheese sandwiches and a great deal of
beer, and for one charmed evening Frau Knapf forgets all
about the insides of geese and the thickening for gravies,