At first Daniel had received small bits of news from England about
Benda, but for a year and a half he had not heard a word. When Eleanore
returned from Pommersfelden in July, she told him that she had received
a letter from Benda in April, and that she had sent him this letter when
he was at Naumburg. Daniel, however, had never received it, and the
investigations which he made proved fruitless.
Benda's mother was not in the city; she was living with relatives in
Worms, but had kept her apartment at Herr Carovius's.
Frau von Auffenberg was at Bad Ems, and did not plan to return until
September. Daniel looked up old friends, and rebound the ties of former
days. He also succeeded in getting a number of students to tutor, an
occupation that netted him a little spending money.
He had to attend to a great deal of business for which he was quite
unfit. He had imagined that he could get married just as he might go to
a shop and buy something: he would not make any noise, nor would it take
much time. He had a hundred moods, a hundred objections, a hundred
grimaces. The apartment on AEgydius Place was already rented. It
embittered him to think that in order to live with a person you loved,
you had to have tables, beds, chairs, cupboards, lamps, glasses, plates,
garbage cans, water pails, window cushions, and a thousand and one other
foolish objects.
There was a great deal of talk in the city about the marriage. The
people said they did not know what Jordan could be thinking of. They
were convinced that he was in desperate financial straits if he would
marry his daughter to an impecunious musician.
Daniel found everything hard: every day was his Day of Judgment. A
melody was gnawing at his heart, trying to take on a pure and finished
form. Freedom sounded in his ears with voices from above; his quiet
fiancee begged for comradeship. The task to which he had dedicated
himself demanded loneliness; then his blood carried him along and away,
and he became like wax, but wild.
He would rush to Jordan's house, enter the living room, his hair all
dishevelled, sit down where the two sisters were working on Gertrude's
trousseau, and never utter a syllable until Gertrude would come up to
him and lay her hand on his forehead. He thrust her back, but she smiled
gently. At times, though none too frequently, he would take her by the
arms and pull her down to him. When he did this, Eleanore would smile
with marked demureness, as if it were not right for her to see two
people in love.
There was a second-hand baby grand piano in Jordan's living room. Daniel
played on it in the evening, and the sisters listened. Gertrude was like
a woman wrapt in peaceful slumber, her every wish having been fulfilled,
with kindly spirits watching over her. Eleanore, however, was wide
awake; she was awake and meditating.