nstruction; the life of his friend Karl Malthy, 1870; and 'Der
Kronprinz und die Deutsche Kaiserkrone' (The Crown Prince and the
German Imperial Crown: 1889), written after the death of Frederick
III., with whom Freytag had had personal relations. To accompany
the collected edition of his works (1887-88), he wrote a short
autobiography, 'Erinnerungen aus Meinem Leben' (Recollections from
My Life).

THE GERMAN PROFESSOR

From 'The Lost Manuscript'

Professors' wives also have trouble with their husbands. Sometimes
when Ilse was seated in company with her intimate friends--with Madame
Raschke, Madame Struvelius, or little Madame Guenther--at one of those
confidential coffee parties which they did not altogether despise,
many things would come to light.

The conversation with these intellectual women was certainly very
interesting. It is true the talk sometimes passed lightly over the
heads of the servants, and sometimes housekeeping troubles ventured
out of the pond of pleasant talk like croaking frogs. To Ilse's
surprise, she found that even Flaminia Struvelius could discourse
seriously about preserving little gherkins, and that she sought
closely for the marks of youth in a plucked goose. The merry Madame
Guenther aroused horror and laughter in more experienced married women,
when she asserted that she could not endure the crying of little
children, and that from the very first she would force her child
(which she had not yet got) to proper silence by chastisement. Thus
conversation sometimes left greater subjects to stray into this
domain. And when unimportant subjects were reviewed, it naturally came
about that the men were honored by a quiet discussion. At such times
it was evident that although the subject under consideration was men
in general, each of the wives was thinking of her own husband, and
that each silently carried about a secret bundle of cares, and
justified the conclusion of her hearers that that husband too must be
difficult to manage.

Madame Raschke's troubles could not be concealed; the whole town knew
them. It was notorious that one market day her husband had gone to the
university in his dressing-gown--in a brilliant dressing-gown, blue
and orange, with a Turkish pattern. His students, who loved him dearly
and were well aware of his habits, could not succeed in suppressing a
loud laugh; and Raschke had calmly hung the dressing-gown over his
pulpit, held his lecture in his shirt-sle