Germany -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
For very many years no connection had been maintained between the two
women who lived together in Nuremberg, and their nearest relative,
who was a half-brother of Madame Staubach's, a lawyer, living in
Cologne. This uncle of Linda's was a Roman Catholic, and had on this
account been shunned by Madame Staubach. Some slight intercourse
there had been on matters of business, and thus it had come to pass
that Linda knew the address of her uncle. But this was all that she
knew, and knowing this only, she had started for Cologne. The reader
will hardly require to be told that she had not gone in company with
him who a few weeks since had been her lover. The reader, perhaps,
will have understood Linda's character so thoroughly as to be
convinced that, though she had submitted to be dragged out of her
window by her lover, and carried away to Augsburg in the night,
still it was not probable that she should again be guilty of such
indiscretion as that. The lesson had not been in vain. If there be
any reader who does not know Linda's character better than it was
known to Herr Molk, or even to Tetchen, this story has been told
in vain. All alone she started, and all alone she made the entire
journey. Long as it was, there was no rest for her on the way. She
went by a cheap and slow train, and on she went through the long day
and the long night, and on through the long day again. She did not
suffer with the cold as she had suffered on that journey to Augsburg,
but the weariness of the hours was very great, and the continuation
of the motion oppressed her sorely. Then joined to this suffering was
the feeling that she was going to a strange world in which no one
would receive her kindly. She had money to take her to Cologne, but
she would have none to bring her back again. It seemed to her as she
went that there could be no prospect to her returning to a home which
she had disgraced so thoroughly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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