Daniel had grown tired of his room in the attic and the society of
brush-maker Hadebusch. He announced that he was going to move.
Surrounded by a cloud of smells from boiled cabbage, Frau Hadebusch
raged about the ingratitude of man. Her shrieks called Herr Francke and
the Methodist from out their warm holes; the brush-maker and his
imbecile son also appeared in the dimly lighted vestibule; and before
these five Hogarth figures stood the defenceless sinner, Daniel
Nothafft.
He looked about in the suburbs of St. Mary, but found everything too
dear. He went out to New Gate, but everything was taken. He tried the
St. John district, and that pleased him best of all. Late in the
afternoon he came to a house in the Long Row, at the entrance to which
hung a "To Let" sign.
He pulled the bell cord, and a beautiful servant girl took him into a
room. Through the window he could look out on a garden filled with old
trees. A spinster came in, and smiled at the pleasure he took in the
room and the view.
"I must see my sister," she said, as he asked her about the price.
She called out into the hall, and her sister, likewise an elderly and
kindly spinster, came in. They held a council, the deliberations of
which were conducted in muffled tones, and then agreed that they would
have to consult Albertina. She was the third sister. The first tip-toed
to the door and, with pointed lips, called the name, Albertina, out into
the long hall with as much coyness as had been employed in summoning the
second sister.
Albertina was the youngest of the three; she was about forty. But she
had forgotten, like Jasmina and Saloma, to erase twenty years from the
calendar: all three had preserved the youthful charm of their girlhood.
Albertina blushed as she looked at the young man, and her modesty was
contagious; the two sisters also blushed. She told Daniel that they were
the Ruediger sisters. With that she remained silent, and looked down as
though she had divulged her entire fate. She informed Daniel that they
had decided to rent the room to some dependable young man, because there
had been considerable petty thieving in the neighbourhood of late and
they would like to enjoy the protection of a man, for they were entirely
alone, except for the boy who tended the garden. They told him also that
they had had several offers, but that they had declined them because
they did not like the appearance of the applicants. In affairs of this
kind, indeed in everything, the three sisters were always of like mind.
Fraeulein Saloma asked Daniel what he did. He replied that he was a
musician. A chorus of surprise greeted his ears, rendered in perfect
time by the three female voices. Fraeulein Jasmina asked him whether he
was a singer or a violinist. He replied that he was neither, that he was
a composer, or that he at least hoped to become one. With that an
expression of intense spirituality spread over the faces of the sisters,
so that they looked like triplets. Aha, a creative artist! "Y-e-s," said
Daniel, "if you wish to put it that way: a creative artist."
They hopped into the corner like so many sparrows, and went into serious
conference. Fraeulein Saloma, as chairman, wanted to know whether a
monthly rent of twelve marks would be too much. No, replied Daniel, that
would not be excessive. He said it without giving the matter the
slightest consideration, and then shook hands with the sisters. Fraeulein
Jasmina added that he could use the piano on the first floor whenever he
wished to, and that it merely needed tuning. Daniel shook her hand
again, this time with special warmth. His joy had awakened in him a
measure of clumsy familiarity.
Before he left the house he went out into the garden, and stood for a
while under one of the trees. A tree to myself at last, he thought. Up
in the top a blackbird was singing. Meta the servant looked out from the
door where she was standing, astonished at it all.
Fraeulein Albertina said to her sisters: "He seems like an interesting
young man, but he has bad manners."
"Artists attach no importance to externalities," replied Fraeulein
Jasmina with knitted brow.
"A great mistake. He always looked as if he had just come out of a
bandbox. You remember, don't you?"
The other two nodded. The three then walked down the garden path, arm in
arm.