The streets of Nuremberg were hung with black banners. It was raining.
Daniel took a cheap room in The Bear.
It had already grown dark when he started to Jordan's. He met Benno at
the front door. He did not recognise the foppishly-dressed young man,
and was on the point of passing by without speaking to him; but Benno
stopped, and laughed out loud.
"Whew, the Herr Kapellmeister!" he cried, and his pale face, already
showing the signs of dissipation, took on a scornful expression. "Be
careful, my friend, or Gertrude will swoon."
Daniel asked if they were all well. Benno replied that there was no
lack of good health, though some of the family were a little short of
change. Then he laughed again. He spoke of his father, said the old
gentleman was not getting along very well, that he was having quite a
little trouble to get anything to do, but then what could be expected
with a man of his age, and the competition and the hard times! Daniel
asked if Eleanore was at home. No, she was not at home: she had gone on
a visit with Frau Ruebsam over to Pommersfelden, and planned to stay
there for a few weeks. "Well, I'll have to be hurrying along," said
Benno, "my fraternity brothers are waiting for me."
"Good gracious! Do you have fraternity brothers too?"
"Of course! They are the spice of my life! We have a holiday to-day: The
King's funeral. Well, God bless you, Herr Kapellmeister, I must be
going."
Daniel went up and rang the bell; Gertrude came to the door. It was
dark; each could see only the outline of the other.
"Oh, it's you, Daniel!" she whispered, happy as happy could be. She came
up to him, and laid her face on his shoulder.
Daniel was surprised at the regularity of his pulse. Yesterday the mere
thought of this meeting took his breath. Now he held Gertrude in his
arms, and was amazed to find that he was perfectly calm and composed.
In the room he led her over to the lamp, and looked at her for a long
while, fixedly and seriously. She grew pale at the sight of him: he was
so strange and so terrible.
Then he took her by the hand, led her over to the sofa, sat down beside
her, and told her of his plans. Her wishes and his tallied exactly. He
wanted to get married within four weeks. Very well; she would get
married.
He found her the same unqualifiedly submissive girl. In her eyes there
was an expression of fatal docility; it terrified him. There was no
cowardly doubt in her soul; her cool hand lay in his and did not twitch.
With her hand her whole soul, her whole life, lay in his hand. He wanted
to raise some doubt in her mind: he spoke in a down-hearted tone of his
future prospects; he said that there was very little hope of his ever
winning recognition from the world for his compositions.
"What is the good of recognition?" she asked. "They can take nothing
from you, and what they give you is clear gain."
He became silent. The feeling of her worth to him swept like a fiery
meteor through the heaven of his existence.
The statement that they were going to remain in Nuremberg made her
happy, particularly because of her father. She said there was a small
apartment for rent on AEgydius Place, three rooms, a very quiet
neighbourhood. They went over to the window; Gertrude showed him the
house. It was close to the church, right where the Place makes a turn.
Jordan came in, and welcomed Daniel with a long handshake. His hair had
become greyer, he walked with more of a stoop, and his clothes showed
traces of neglect.
When he heard what Daniel and Gertrude were planning to do, he shook his
head: "It is a bad year, children. Why are you in such a hurry? Both of
you are still young."
"If we were older, we would have less courage," replied Daniel.
Jordan took a seat, and buried his face in his hands. In course of time
he looked up, and said that three years ago he had only eight thousand
marks in the bank; that hard times had forced him to draw on this sum to
keep the house going; and that to-day there was hardly a third of it
left. Two thousand marks was all he could give Gertrude as a dowry; with
that they would have to be satisfied, and get along as well as they
could.
"We don't need any more," said Daniel; "as a matter of fact I did not
expect that much. Now I haven't a care in the world; I am ready for
anything."
A bat flew in at the open window, and then quietly flew out again. It
had stopped raining. You could still hear the water trickling and
splashing down the leaders and in the pipes. There was something heavy,
portentous, in the air of this June evening.