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She made quite a little speech, in the course of which she now and then interrupted herself to remind Furst who, was as soft as a pudding before her of something he had forgotten to do, such as snuffing the candles or closing the door. "Just let me hear your scale, will you?" she said patronisingly to Mrs. Lautenschlager.
She had a favourite cat which was devoted to her, but its attachment doesn't seem to have been enough to make her happy, for she married a young sergeant named Lautenschlager, who might have been her son or indeed her grandson and who, as everyone said, courted her for her money. She died as long ago as 1869, and during her last illness the devoted cat was always with her.
Loud cries were uttered and exclamations of enthusiasm; people rose from their seats and crowded round the piano to congratulate the player. Mrs. Lautenschlager could not desist from kissing his hand. A tall, thin Russian girl in spectacles, who had assiduously taken notes throughout, asked in a loud voice, and her peculiar, hoppy German, for information about the orchestration.
"After a few years of married life the second wife died, and Lautenschlager married a third. The little cottage business had prospered, and in its place he now had a considerable draper's shop in Michelstadt.
He had a sister whom he placed in the cottage of poor 'Pfeiffe Louise. She carried on the business, and every day Lautenschlager used to walk over from Steinbach to see how she was getting on, returning in the evening to his wife, who used to relate to my mother that he frequently came home terrified and bathed in perspiration, for as he passed the place where he had drowned the cat, its ghost used to come out of the river and run beside him along the dark road, sometimes terrifying him still more by jumping in front of him.
"Lautenschlager continued to be haunted by the cat-ghost at irregular intervals for more than twenty years, and it made a marked change in his character. He became serious, and during the latter part of his life would only talk about religion and read sacred literature. He died about ten years ago." Letter 7 A Spectral Fox-terrier
It kept watch beside the body when she was dead, and refused to be driven away. In a fit of exasperation Lautenschlager seized it, carried it off, and drowned it in the little River Mumling, at a place where the road from Michelstadt to the neighbouring village Steinbach runs near the water's edge. It was bordered with poplars then, but chestnut trees shade it now.
"I can remember hearing his third wife describe his dread of it, and my mother has told me how both the sister and the second wife used to say the same thing, though I was too young then for them to tell me about it. Lautenschlager used also to complain to the country people who came to dine at his eating-house.
Lautenschlager, a plump little American lady, with straight yellow hair which hung down on her shoulders, was relating to her neighbour on the other side, in a tone that could be clearly heard in both rooms, how she had "discovered" her voice. "I come to Schwarz, last fall," she said shaking back her hair, and making effective use of her babyish mouth; "and he thinks no end of me.
"Soon after his first wife was buried Lautenschlager married again, and opened an eating-house in Steinbach, where he established his second wife.
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