IV

Without the slightest regard for time, without feeling tired, without

definite thoughts, detached from the present and all sense of

obligation, Daniel wandered aimlessly through the streets. A low dive on

Schuett Island saw him as a late guest. He sat there with his hands

before his eyes, neither seeing nor hearing nor feeling, all crouched up

in a bundle. Dirty little puddles of gin glistened on the top of the

table, the gamblers were cursing, the proprietor was drunk.

The fire alarm drove him out: there was a fire in the suburbs of

Schoppershof. The sky was reddened, it was drizzling. It seemed to

Daniel that the air was reeking with the premonition of a heart-crushing

disaster. Above the Laufer Gate a sheaf of sparks was whirling about.

Just then the melody for which he had waited so long throughout so many

nights of restless despair arose before him in a grandiose circle. It

seemed as if born for the words of the "Harzreise": "With the dim

burning torch thou lightest for him the ferries at night over bottomless

paths, across desolate fields."

In mournful thirds, receding again and again, the voices sank to earth;

just one remained on high, alone, piously dissociated from profane

return.

He hummed the melody with trembling lips to himself, until he met the

nineteenth-century Socrates with his followers in the Rosenthal. They

were still gipsying through the night.

They all talked at once; they were going to the fire. Daniel passed by

unrecognised. The shrill voice of the painter Kropotkin pierced the air:

"Hail to the flames! Hail to those whose coming we announce!" The

laughter of the slough brothers died away in the distance.

Gertrude was standing at the head of the stairs with a candle in her

hand; she had been waiting there since twelve o'clock. At eleven she had

gone over to her father's house and rung the bell. Eleanore, frightened,

had raised the window, and called down to her that Daniel had left her

at nine.

He took the half-inanimate woman into the living room: "You must never

wait for me, never," he said.

He opened the window, pointed to the glowing sky beyond the church, and

as she leaned her head, with eyes closed, on his shoulder, he said with

a scurrilous distortion of his face: "Behold! The fire! Hail to the

flames! Hail to those whose coming we announce!"

V

The following morning Eleanore had no time to think of why Daniel had

not gone home.

Jordan had just finished his breakfast when some one rang the door bell

with unusual rapidity. Eleanore went to the door, and came back with

Herr Zittel, who was in a rare state of excitement.

"I have come to inquire about your son, Jordan," he began, clearing his

throat as though he were embarrassed.

"About my son?" replied Jordan astonished, "I thought you had given him

three days' leave."

"I know nothing about that," replied Herr Zittel.

"Last Saturday evening he went on a visit to his friend Gerber in

Bamberg to celebrate the founding of a club, or something of that sort;

we are not expecting him until to-morrow. If you know nothing about this

arrangement, Herr Diruf must have given him his leave."

The chief of the clerical department bit his lips. "Can you give me the

address of this Herr Gerber?" he asked, "I should like to send him a

telegram."

"For heaven's sake, what has happened, Herr Zittel?" cried Jordan,

turning pale.

Herr Zittel stared into space with his gloomy, greenish eyes: "On

Saturday afternoon Herr Diruf gave your son a cheque for three thousand

seven hundred marks, and told him to cash it at the branch of the

Bavarian Bank and bring the money to me. I was busy and did not go to

the office in the afternoon. To-day, about a half-hour ago, Herr Diruf

asked me whether I had received the money. It turned out that your son

had not put in his appearance on Saturday, and since he has not shown up

this morning either, you will readily see why we are so uneasy."

Jordan straightened up as stiff as a flag pole: "Do you mean to

insinuate that my son is guilty of some criminal transaction?" he

thundered forth, and struck the top of the table with the bones of his

clenched fist.

Herr Zittel shrugged his shoulders: "It is, of course, possible that

there has been some misunderstanding, or that some one has failed to

perform his duty. But in any event the affair is serious. Something must

be done at once, and if you leave me in the lurch I shall have to call

in the police."

Jordan's face turned ashen pale. For some reason or other he began to

fumble about in his long black coat for the pocket. The coat had no

pocket, and yet he continued to feel for it with hasty fingers. He tried

to speak, but his tongue refused to obey him; beads of perspiration

settled on his brow.

Eleanore embraced him with solicitous affection: "Be calm, Father, don't

imagine the worst. Sit down, and let us talk it over." She dried the

perspiration from his forehead with her handkerchief, and then breathed

a kiss on it.

Jordan fell on a chair; his powers of resistance were gone; he looked at

Eleanore with beseeching tenseness. From the very first she had known

what had happened and what would happen. But she dared not show him that

she was without hope; she summoned all the power at her resourceful

command to prevent the old man from having a paralytic stroke.

With the help of Herr Zittel she wrote out a telegram to Gerber. The

answer, to be pre-paid, was to be sent to the General Agency of the

Prudentia, and Eleanore was to go to the main office between eleven and

twelve o'clock. She accompanied Herr Zittel to the front door, whereupon

he said: "Do everything in your power to get the money. If the loss can

be made good at once, Herr Diruf may be willing not to take the case to

the courts."

Eleanore knew full well that it would be exceedingly difficult to get

such a sum as this. Her father had no money in the bank; his employer

had lost confidence in him because he could no longer exert himself;

what he needed most of all was a rest.

She entered the room with a friendly expression on her face, and

remarked quite vivaciously: "Now, Father, we will wait and see what

Benno has to say; and in order that you may not worry so much, I will

read something nice to you."

Sitting on a hassock at her father's feet she read from a recent number

of the _Gartenlaube_ the description of an ascent of Mont Blanc. Then

she read another article that her eye chanced to fall upon. All the

while her bright voice was ringing through the room, she was struggling

with decisions to which she might come and listening to the ticking of

the clock. That her father no more had his mind on what she was reading

than she herself was perfectly clear to her.

Finally the clock struck eleven. She got up, and said she had to go to

the kitchen to make the fire. A maid usually came in at eleven to get

dinner for the family, but to-day she had not appeared. Out in the hall

Eleanore took her straw hat, and hastened over to Gertrude's as fast as

her feet could carry her. Daniel was not at home; Gertrude was peeling

potatoes.

In three sentences Eleanore had told her sister the whole story. "Now

you come with me at once! Go up and stay with Father! See that he does

not leave the house! I will be back in half an hour!"

Gertrude was literally dragged down the steps by Eleanore; before she

could ask questions of any kind, Eleanore had disappeared.

At the General Agency Herr Zittel met her with the reply from that

Gerber, Benno's friend. It bore Gerber's signature, and read: "Benno

Jordan has not been here."

Benjamin Dorn stood behind Herr Zittel; he displayed an expression of

soft, smooth, dirge-like regret.

"Herr Diruf would like to speak to you," said Herr Zittel coldly.

Eleanore entered Herr Diruf's private office; her face was pale. He kept

on writing for about three minutes before he took any notice of her.

Then his plum-like eyes opened lazily, a rare, voluptuous smile sneaked

out from under his moustache like a slothful flash of heat lightning; he

said: "The sharper has gone and done it, hasn't he?"

Eleanore never moved.

"Can the embezzled money be returned within twenty-four hours?" asked

the pudgy, purple prince of pen-pushers.

"My father will do everything that is humanly possible," replied

Eleanore anxiously.

"Be so good as to inform your father that to-morrow morning at twelve

o'clock the charge will be preferred and placed in the hands of the

police, if the money has not been paid by that time."

Eleanore hastened home. Now her father had to be brought face to face

with the realities of the case. He and Gertrude were sitting close to

each other in terrible silence. Eleanore revealed the exact state of

affairs; she had to.

"My good name!" groaned Jordan.

He had to save himself from disgrace; the twenty-four hours seemed to

offer him a sure means of doing this. He had not the remotest doubt but

that he could find friends who would come to his aid; for he had

something of which he could boast: a blameless past and the reputation

of being a reliable citizen.

Thus he thought it over to himself. And as soon as he made up his mind

to appeal to the friends of whom he felt he was certain, the most

difficult part of his plan seemed to have been completed. The suffering

to which he was condemned by his wounded pride and his betrayed, crushed

filial affection he had to bear alone. He knew that this was a separate

item.

He went out to look up his friends.