They frequently took walks after sunset out to the suburbs and up to the
castle. Gertrude was pleased to see that Daniel and Eleanore were good
friends again.
One time when they walked up the castle hill, Eleanore told Daniel that
there was where she had taken leave of Eberhard von Auffenberg. She
could recall everything he said, and she confessed with marked candour
what she had said in reply. The story about the old herb woman Daniel
did not find amusing. He stopped, and said: "Child, don't have anything
to do with spirits! Never interfere with your lovely reality."
"Don't talk in that way," replied Eleanore. "I dislike it. The tone of
your voice and the expression on your face make me feel as if I were a
woman of worldly habits."
They went into the Church of St. Sebaldus, and revelled in the beauty
of the bronze castings on the tomb of the saint. They also went to the
Germanic Museum, where they loved to wander around in the countless
deserted passage-ways, stopped and studied the pictures, and never tired
of looking at the old toys, globes, kitchen utensils, and armour.
Eleanore's greatest pleasure, however, was derived from sauntering
through the narrow alleys. She like to stand in an open door, and look
into the court at some weather-beaten statue; to stand before the window
of an antique shop, and study the brocaded objects, silver chains, rings
with gaudy stones, engraved plates, and rare clocks. All manner of
roguish ideas came to her mind, and around every wish she wove a fairy
tale. The meagrest incident sufficed to send her imagination to the land
of wonders, just as if the fables and legends that the people had been
passing on from hearth to hearth for centuries were leading a life of
reality over there.
The tailor sitting with crossed legs on his table; the smith hammering
the red-hot iron; the juggler who made the rounds of the city with the
trained monkey; the Jewish pawnbroker, the chimney sweep, the one-legged
veteran, an old woman who looked out from some cellar, a spider's nest
in the corner of a wall--around all these things and still others she
wound her tale of weal or woe. It seemed that what she saw had never
been seen by mortal eyes before. It seemed that the things or people
that attracted her attention had not existed until she had seen them.
For this reason she was never in a bad humour, never bored, never lazy,
never tired.
There was something about her, however, that Daniel could not
understand. He did not know wherein the riddle lay, he merely knew that
there was one. If she gave him her hand, it seemed to him that there was
something unreal about it. If he requested that she look at him, she did
so, but it seemed that her glance was divided, half going to the left,
half to the right, neither meeting his. If she came so close to him that
their arms touched, he had the feeling that he could not take hold of
her if he wished to.
He struggled against the enticement that lay in this peculiarity.
Her presence ennobled his ambition and dispelled his whims. She gave him
the beautifully formed cloud, the tree covered with young foliage, the
moon that rises up over the roofs of the houses--she gave him the whole
earth over which he was hastening, a stranger to peace, unfamiliar with
contentment.
He cherished no suspicion; he had no foreshadowing of his fate. And
Eleanore was not afraid of him; she, too, was without a sense of danger.