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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 February 2024
The twenty-fourth came and went, the engagement was announced, and the six persons who comprised the entire party enjoyed themselves, without exception. Even Schulze, who in response to Thilde's invitation appeared in the Möhrings’ flat with the air of a Turkish prince condescending to indulge his people, stayed for a full half hour. Though abstaining from anything in the form of food and drink offered him, he behaved all the more familiarly with Rybinski's fiancée. Rybinski himself laughed, and insisted now and then that he would have to call the counselor out, since he had never been faced with such a challenge to his sacred rights. In the end, he promised to pay a social call on the counselor and his wife around New Year, at the latest, but without his fiancée. “One can never know how your wife would respond,” he whispered to his new friend Schulze. Schulze winked.
The architect cousin made the toast to the newly engaged couple. One should not be surprised—thus began the toast—if he, as a man of buildings, were to also see marriage, for which one might consider engagement to be the antechamber, as a kind of building. “The foundation, ladies and gentlemen, is love. That we have this here has been proven. The mortar that holds the building together for all eternity, that mortar is faithfulness.”
Schulze nodded. Rybinski cried “bravo!” and cautioned his fiancée, who stood next to Schulze, by making a stabbing gesture with his finger, as though warning Schulze to stay in his place. The architect cousin resumed:
“The mortar, I say! Yet, given the shocks that life brings, even the best-constructed building requires braces and supports, and these braces and supports, they are the friends, they are us. A good house also has ornamentation, and in its recesses and alcoves we find all sorts of dear small figures; the Italians say ‘putti,’ we Germans call them Putten. I know I anticipate the future, but in this merry hour, you will allow me a merry glance into the future. Long live the bridal pair, long live the future, long live the Putten!”
Rybinski embraced the speaker and said something about the mysterious charm of the talent for pleasing oratory.
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