“By George, that’s fine,” he said, letting the curtain up and down, and stepping back for a view of the scenery. “Did you ask for it? Oh, so you did ask for it!” he suddenly said after a pause, during which his eyes had roved about the room as though he were full of unquiet thoughts. “Why did you ask for it? What made you think of it? Have you been in the theatre? _Fidelio_, eh? Yes, they give that well. And you want to imitate it, do you? Do opera yourself, eh? Did it make such an impression on you? Listen, son--take my advice: don’t think too much about such things--theatre, and that sort of thing. It’s no good. Believe your old uncle. I’ve always spent too much time on them, and that is why I haven’t come to much good. I’ve made great mistakes, you know.” Thus he held forth to his nephew, while Hanno looked up at him curiously. He paused, and his bony, emaciated face cleared up as he regarded the little theatre. Then he suddenly moved forward one of the figures on the stage, and sang, in a cracked and hollow tremolo, “Ha, what terrible transgression!” He sat down on the piano-stool, which he shoved up in front of the theatre, and began to give a performance, singing all the rôles and the accompaniment as well, and gesticulating furiously. The family gathered at his back, laughed, nodded their heads, and enjoyed it immensely. As for Hanno, his pleasure was profound. Christian broke off, after a while, very abruptly. His face clouded, he rubbed his hand over his skull and down his left side, and turned to his audience with his nose wrinkled and his face quite drawn. “There it is again,” he said. “I never have a little fun without having to pay for it. It is not an ordinary pain, you know, it is a misery, down all this left side, because the nerves are too short.” But his relatives took his complaints as little seriously as they had his entertainment. They hardly answered him, but indifferently dispersed, leaving Christian sitting before the little theatre in silence. He blinked rapidly for a bit and then got up. “No, child,” said he, stroking Hanno’s head: “amuse yourself with it, but not too much, you know: don’t neglect your work for it, do you hear? I have made a great many mistakes.--I think I’ll go over to the club for a while,” he said to the elders. “They are celebrating there to-day, too. Good-bye for the present.” And he went off across the hall, on his stiff, crooked legs.