Marian climbed up the steep, dark stairs, and rang the upstairs bell.
She had to tell the maid who she was and even mention her name to the
children. The latter laughed at her stiff, rural courtesy. Philippina,
who was twelve, acted arrogantly and swung her hips when she walked. All
three had their mother's square head and a cheesy complexion.
The maid brought up the bag. Then Theresa came too and helped her sister
unpack. With her acrid, unfeeling voice she asked many questions, but
without waiting for an answer told the tale of marriage and births and
deaths that had taken place in the city. She avoided Marian's eyes,
because she was silently considering how long her sister's visit would
last and to what expense it would put her.
She did not mention Daniel, and her silence condemned him more
completely than her husband's acrimonious speeches. She held firmly an
almost religious doctrine of the complete obedience which children owe
their parents, and doubted Marian's power to punish properly a breach of
this sacred law.
When Marian was left alone, she sat down by the window of the little
room, and gazed sadly down at the river. Without any curl of waves the
yellow water glided by and washed the walls of the houses on the other
bank. She had a view of the Museum Bridge and another bridge, and the
crowding of people on the bridges disquieted her.
She walked through the streets, and stopped at the head of the Museum
Bridge. She thought that every human being who lived in the town must
pass by here sooner or later. Her attentive glance searched all faces,
and where one escaped, she followed the figure as it melted into the
dark. But as it grew later the people were fewer and fewer.
At night she would lie awake, and listen to the dull echo of the feet of
the last passerby. Next day from morning to twilight she would wander up
and down the streets. What she saw weighed on her heart. The city people
seemed to her like dumb animals, tormented and angry. The narrow streets
stopped her breath; the hubbub deadened her senses.
But she was never tired of seeking.
On the fifth day she did not come home until ten o'clock. Theresa, who
had gone to bed, sent her a plate of lentil soup. While she was avidly
eating the soup she heard steps in the hall and a knock at the door.
Jason Philip entered. "Come along at once," was all he said. But she
understood. With trembling fingers she threw a shawl across her
shoulders, since the October nights were growing cool, and followed him
in silence.
They went up hill to Adler Street, turned into it and then into a
narrow, dark little alley at the right. A lantern hung above a door and
on a green glass pane were inscribed the words: "The Vale of Tears." A
greenish light suffused the stone stairs that led to the cellar, the
kegs and the desolate room filled with chairs and benches. A sourish
smell of wine arose from the place.
Beside the entrance there was a barred window. Beside it Jason Philip
stopped, and beckoned Marian to join him.
At the long tables below them sat a queer crowd. They were young men,
but such as one never finds in ordinary houses and only very rarely in
the streets. Want seemed to have driven them to huddle here, and the
night to have lured them from their hiding places--shipwrecked creatures
they seemed who had fled to a cavern on some deserted shore. They had
absurdly gay cravats and sad, pallid faces, and the greenish light made
them look altogether like corpses. It was long since a barber had
touched their hair or a tailor their garb.
A little aside from these sat two old fellows, habitual topers, not in
the best circumstances themselves, yet rather astonished at this dreary
Stygian crew. For they themselves at least received their weekly wage of
a Saturday night, while those others had obviously for years not worked
at all.
But in a dusky corner sat one at a piano and struck the keys with a
strange might. He had no score before him, but played from memory. The
instrument moaned; the strings hummed pitifully; the pedals creaked; but
the man who played was so bewitched by his music that he cared little
for the inadequacy of its communication. Wild as the tumult of the
playing sounded, the shrill and raging chords, the wild clamour of the
treble, the driven triplets and seething tremolos of the bass, yet the
deep emotion of the player, the ecstasy and world-estranged madness in
which he was, lent the scene a melancholy and a solemnity which would
have had its effect even without the greenish cellar and the cavernous
pallor of the listeners.
Marian had at once recognised the pianist as Daniel. She had to hold
fast to the bars of the window and lean her knees against the
wainscoting. It was not for nothing that Jason Philip was known as a
thorough wag. The comparison to Daniel in the lion's den was too much
for him. He whispered the words to Marian. But since the window was open
and the music had first risen and then, at this moment, paused, his
words penetrated to the people below, and several heads turned toward
him. Marian was thoughtless. She believed that the piece had ended.
Faintly and fearfully she cried: "Daniel!"
Daniel leaped up, stared at her, saw Jason Philip's mocking face,
hastened to the door, the steps, and was beside them.
He stood in the doorway, and his lips began to form words. The unhappy
boy, she thought, and it seemed to her as though power would be given
her to press back to his heart the words she trembled to hear.
It was in vain. The words were uttered. He did not wish to see his
mother any more; he was content to live alone and for himself and to be
free. He needed no one. He needed only to be free.
Jason Philip hurled a glance of contempt at the blasphemous wretch, and
drew Marian away with him. To the very corner of the alley they were
accompanied by the excited voices of the people in the Vale of Tears.
Next morning Marian returned to Eschenbach.