Therefore, often as it impels me to resistance, I yield unless it is too
strong for me. Besides, but for your interruption, I should have said
nothing about my father. What concerns us I inherited from my mother,
and, as I mean kindly toward you, this very heritage compels me to warn
you against marrying me if you are unable to support me so that I can
make a good appearance among Ratisbon wives. Moreover, poor church mouse
though I am, I sometimes give them one thing and another to guess, and
I haven't far to travel to learn what envy is. In my present position,
however, compassion is far more difficult to bear than ill-will. But I
by no means keep out of the way on that account. I must be seen and
heard if I am to be happy, and I shall probably succeed so long as my
voice retains the melting tone which is now peculiar to it. Should
anything destroy that, there will be a change. Then--I know this in
advance--I shall tread in the footsteps of my mother, who had no means
of satisfying her longing for admiration except her pretty face, her
beautiful figure, and the finery which she stole from the poverty of her
husband, and her only child. How you are staring at me again! But I can
not forget that now; for, had it not been so, we should still be living
in our own house as a distinguished family of knightly rank, and I should
have no need to spend my best hours in secretly washing laces for others-
-yes, for others, Wolf--to gain a wretched sum of which even my father
must be ignorant. You do not know how we are obliged to economize, and
yet I can only praise the pride of my father, who induced me to return
the gifts which the Council sends to the house by the town clerk when I
sing in the Convivium musicum. But what a pleasure it is to show the
bloated fellow the door when he pulls out the linen purse! True, many
things must be sacrificed to do it, and how hard that often
is can not be described. I would not bear it long. But, if I were your
wife and you had only property enough for a modest competence, you would
scarcely fare better, through my fault, than my poor father. That would