At first I thought I hadn't seen straight, then I stuck my red hands in my pockets, then I got a fit of coughing, then I swore at myself--"You blooming idiot! you donkey!"--then I wanted to bolt, and finally I took to staring into my empty coffee cup. Like an old maid. But when I looked up--I had to look up now and then--I always met those great, light-blue languishing eyes. They seemed to say: "Don't you know I am an enchanted princess whom you are to set free?" "Do you know why I gave her that crazy name?" the old man asked, grinning at her slily. She tossed her head scornfully and stood up. She seemed to know his jokes. "This is how it was. She was a week old. She was lying in her cradle kicking her legs--legs like little sausages. And her little buttocks, you know----" Ye gods! I scarcely risked looking up, I was so embarrassed. The Baroness behaved as if she heard nothing, and Iolanthe left the room. But the old man shook with laughter. "Ha--ha--such a rosy mite--such softness, and a shape like a rose leaf. Well, when I looked at her, I said, in my young father's joy, 'That girl's going to be beautiful and bad and will kick her legs the whole of her life. She must have a very poetic name. Then she'll rise in value with the suitors.' So I looked up names in the dictionary--Thekla, Hero, Elsa, Angelica. No, they were all too soft, like squashed plums. With a name like that she'll languish away for some briefless lawyer. Then Rosaura, Carmen, Beatrice, Wanda--nixy--too passionate--would elope with the manager of the estate. Because a person's name is his fate. Finally I found Iolanthe. Iolanthe melts so sweetly on your tongue--just the name for lovers--and yet it doesn't lead on to silly freaks. It is both tempting and dignified. It lures a man on, but inspires him with serious intentions, too. That's the way I calculated, and my calculations have turned out to be quite right so far, if in the end she doesn't remain on my hands on account of her affectation and squeamishness." At this point Iolanthe came into the room again. Her eyes were half closed and she was smiling like a child in disgrace. I was sorry for the poor pretty creature, and to turn the conversation quickly, I began to speak about the business I had come on. The ladies cleared the table without speaking, and the old man filled the half-charred bowl of his pipe. He seemed inclined to listen patiently. But scarcely did the name Puetz cross my lips when he jumped up and dashed his pipe against the stove so that the burning tobacco leaves flew about in all directions. The mere sight of his face was enough to frighten you. It turned red and blue and swelled up as if he had been seized with a stroke of apoplexy. "Sir-r-r!" he shouted. "Is that the reason you visited me--to poison my home? Don't you know that that d---- name is not to be breathed in this house? Don't you know I curse the fellow in his grave, and curse his brood, and curse all----"