DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62133#0057
PASSING SKETCHES.
41
Ignazius. Poor little Ignazius ! I could fancy a pretty
art-story written about him, and how this might have been
the awakening in him of the sense of beauty.
July %\st.—What a deal of time I have wasted in looking
out of the window and watching the blue-coated postmen,
as the clocks strike twelve, filing up the street from the
Post-office, each with a large packet of letters in his hand.
Surely one among all those letters must be for me !
A blue-coat turns in here ! I wait and wait, and wait,
but no letter ! No doubt it was only a letter he brought
for one of the hundred and one other inhabitants of this
house,—for some student or dressmaker who lives above,
or for the master of the curiosity-shop, or for some of his
journeymen, or for Mr. Biirgermeister Somebody, who
lives on the floor beneath ; for some one, perhaps, at the
Tailor’s, or the Jeweller’s, or the Bookseller’s, or perhaps
for the Under-Secretary Wagner, who has such numbers
of letters and official documents brought to him. At all
events, the letter is not for me ! “ Paatience ! paatience !
paatience !” as our friend L-says. But how gay the
street looks ! Such numbers of butterfly-ladies, in gay mus-
lins and light kid gloves, and with bright-coloured parasols ;
such dandified young officers with their ridiculously small
waists—they lace themselves up as tightly as the silliest of
girls j such clean Burger-Leute; such picturesque groups
of students, their hair so glossy from its Sunday brushing,
their scarlet caps set so jauntily on their heads, their gay
corps-bands displayed over their snowy shirt-fronts; such
a pleasant sound of voices and trampling of feet along the
sunny pavements. I’m quite inspired to put on all my
Sunday apparel and look as gay as the best: I quite long
to descend into my unusual character of “ young lady,”
and go abroad for a pleasant vm-exalte afternoon; drink
coffee with a gay party under green trees to the sound of
41
Ignazius. Poor little Ignazius ! I could fancy a pretty
art-story written about him, and how this might have been
the awakening in him of the sense of beauty.
July %\st.—What a deal of time I have wasted in looking
out of the window and watching the blue-coated postmen,
as the clocks strike twelve, filing up the street from the
Post-office, each with a large packet of letters in his hand.
Surely one among all those letters must be for me !
A blue-coat turns in here ! I wait and wait, and wait,
but no letter ! No doubt it was only a letter he brought
for one of the hundred and one other inhabitants of this
house,—for some student or dressmaker who lives above,
or for the master of the curiosity-shop, or for some of his
journeymen, or for Mr. Biirgermeister Somebody, who
lives on the floor beneath ; for some one, perhaps, at the
Tailor’s, or the Jeweller’s, or the Bookseller’s, or perhaps
for the Under-Secretary Wagner, who has such numbers
of letters and official documents brought to him. At all
events, the letter is not for me ! “ Paatience ! paatience !
paatience !” as our friend L-says. But how gay the
street looks ! Such numbers of butterfly-ladies, in gay mus-
lins and light kid gloves, and with bright-coloured parasols ;
such dandified young officers with their ridiculously small
waists—they lace themselves up as tightly as the silliest of
girls j such clean Burger-Leute; such picturesque groups
of students, their hair so glossy from its Sunday brushing,
their scarlet caps set so jauntily on their heads, their gay
corps-bands displayed over their snowy shirt-fronts; such
a pleasant sound of voices and trampling of feet along the
sunny pavements. I’m quite inspired to put on all my
Sunday apparel and look as gay as the best: I quite long
to descend into my unusual character of “ young lady,”
and go abroad for a pleasant vm-exalte afternoon; drink
coffee with a gay party under green trees to the sound of