Cacilie and Herr Sung's elopement

Cacilie and Herr Sung’s elopement turns a household’s anxious attempt to contain a forbidden relationship into a clean escape. Frau Professor Erlin first treats Cacilie’s attachment as childish folly, then orders her away when fear of scandal takes hold. The lovers leave before the planned departure can be enforced, carrying off their luggage and settling what they owe; their exit is both a practical evasion and a quiet defeat for the household’s authority.

Confession and Recognition

Frau Professor Erlin initially tries to dissuade Cacilie by appealing to her supposed better nature. She presents herself as treating the young woman not as a child but as a grown person, while insisting that the relationship is horrifying because Herr Sung is Chinese. The appeal is not simply against an imprudent romance: it draws on racial contempt, describing his appearance in terms intended to provoke disgust. Cacilie refuses the premise. She says she will hear nothing against him, then repeats that she loves him. Her insistence makes the feeling unmistakable, and Frau Professor Erlin realizes that what she had taken for childish naughtiness is serious passion. Cacilie meets her horrified surprise with a look of flaming anger and leaves the room.

The scene marks a shift from suspicion to knowledge. Before Cacilie speaks plainly, the relationship can be dismissed as folly; afterward, the household must confront an attachment that Cacilie openly claims as her own. Her declaration does not persuade Frau Professor Erlin, but it removes any uncertainty about Cacilie’s commitment. The refusal to submit to the older woman’s judgment is the first visible act of resistance in the sequence that ends with her departure.

The Household’s Attempt to Separate Them

For several days the situation remains unresolved, and its pressure spreads through the small household. The narration describes the atmosphere as sickly with unnatural passion and the household’s nerves as increasingly exasperated. Herr Sung alone appears unchanged: he remains smiling, affable, and polite. His composure is left open to interpretation, either as a triumph of civilization or as contempt for the defeated West. Cacilie, by contrast, becomes flaunting and cynical, making little effort to conceal the relationship.

Frau Professor Erlin’s concern turns from disapproval to fear of consequences. Professor Erlin has bluntly raised the possibility of an intrigue, and she imagines the damage to her good name in Heidelberg and to the reputation of her house if the scandal becomes public. She had not previously considered this possibility, but panic now overwhelms her judgment. Anna’s good sense prevents her from simply throwing Cacilie out at once; instead, a cautious letter is sent to Cacilie’s uncle in Berlin asking that he take her away. The proposed removal makes the family’s and household’s authority concrete: Cacilie is to be transported out of Heidelberg rather than permitted to choose her own future there.

Once Frau Professor Erlin has decided that she is prepared to lose both lodgers, she also gives free rein to the ill temper she had long restrained. She tells Cacilie that she has written to her uncle and can no longer have her in the house. The announcement visibly shocks Cacilie: Frau Professor Erlin notices the sudden whiteness of her face. The young woman’s response to this threat is not recorded in speech, but the next day’s events show that she does not accept the expulsion as the end of her relationship with Herr Sung.

The Ordered Departure and the Elopement

Frau Professor Erlin makes the removal public at supper. She announces that Cacilie must pack that night and leave by train the following morning; her uncle will meet her at Berlin’s Central Bahnhof. Cacilie answers calmly. Herr Sung smiles at Frau Professor Erlin and insists on pouring her a glass of wine despite her protests. The apparently courteous meal gives Frau Professor Erlin a moment of triumph, but it proves premature: the order has not secured Cacilie’s compliance.

Later, Frau Professor Erlin instructs the servant Emil to take Cacilie’s box downstairs if it is ready, so that the porter can collect it before breakfast. Emil returns with the discovery that Cacilie is missing from her room and her bag has gone. Frau Professor Erlin hurries to investigate. The box is still on the floor, strapped and locked, but the bag, hat, and cloak are gone, and the dressing table is empty. She rushes downstairs to Herr Sung’s rooms without knocking. They too are empty, and the luggage has disappeared through the still-open door into the garden.

The departure is not a flight without provision. An envelope on the table contains notes for the money due for the month’s board and an approximate amount for extras. That payment distinguishes the lovers’ escape from a mere unpaid abandonment of the household: they leave the lodging behind but settle their account. Exhausted by her haste, Frau Professor Erlin sinks onto a sofa, recognizing that the pair have gone off together. Emil remains stolid and unmoved. The box left behind, the missing travel belongings, the open garden door, and the money on the table make the conclusion unmistakable without requiring a farewell or a confrontation.

Significance and Narrative Function

The elopement reverses the household’s carefully staged plan. Frau Professor Erlin has arranged a journey in which Cacilie is to be packed, taken to the station, and delivered to her uncle; instead, Cacilie and Herr Sung leave on their own terms before that journey can happen. The distinction is important: the household can decide that Cacilie must go, but it cannot dictate that she go alone or control the manner of her departure. Her earlier declaration of love becomes action, while the older woman’s public command ends in belated discovery.

The episode also sets two forms of authority against one another. Frau Professor Erlin invokes respectability, household reputation, and family intervention, and her objection to Herr Sung is explicitly shaped by racial prejudice. The lovers’ quiet exit does not resolve that prejudice or establish what happens to them afterward; it shows only that the effort to contain their relationship fails. By leaving payment and making use of the garden door, they evade both the ordered railway departure and the household’s immediate power, turning a threatened expulsion into a shared escape.