"The only thing to do is to leave the city, to go far, far away from
here," thought Eleanore, on that evening that was so different from any
other evening of her life.
While she was combing her hair, she was tempted to take the scissors and
cut it off just to make herself ugly. In the night she went to the
window to look for the stars. If it only had not happened, if it only
were a dream, a voice within her cried.
As soon as it turned grey in the morning, she got up. She hastened
through the deserted streets, just as she had done yesterday, out to the
suburbs. But everything was different. Tree and bush looked down upon
her with stern reproachfulness. The mists hung low; but the hazy grey
cold of the early morning was like a bath to her. Later the sun broke
through; primroses glistened with gold on the meadow. If it could only
have been a dream, she thought in silence.
When she came home, her father had already received the news about the
money: it had been paid to Diruf; Daniel had taken it to him.
Jordan remained in his room the whole day. And on the following day he
kept to himself except while at dinner. He sat at the table with bowed
head; he had nothing to say. Eleanore went to his door from time to time
to see if she could hear him. There was not a sound; the house sang with
solitude.
Jordan had requested the landlord to sublet the house before his lease
had expired: he felt that it was too large and expensive for him in the
present state of his affairs. The landlord approved of the idea. In the
house where Daniel and Gertrude were living there were two vacant rooms
in the attic. Gertrude suggested to her father that it would be well for
him to take them. Jordan agreed with her.
Eleanore began to think the situation over: if Father moves into those
rooms, I can leave him. She learned from Gertrude, who came now to see
her father every other day, that Daniel had received the appointment as
Kapellmeister at the City Theatre. Eleanore could carry out her plans
then with a clear conscience, for her brother-in-law and her sister were
getting along quite well at present.
She recalled some conversations she had had with M. Riviere, who had
advised her to go to Paris. Since Christmas, when he was invited to be
present at the distribution of the presents, he had been coming to
Jordan's quite frequently to talk French with Eleanore. This was in
accord with her express desire.
One afternoon she went to visit M. Riviere. He was living in the
romantic place up by the gardener on Castle Hill. His room had a balcony
that was completely overgrown with ivy and elder, while in the
background the trees and bushes of the city moat formed an impenetrable
maze of green. The spring air floated into the room in waves. As
Eleanore made her business known, she fixed her enchanted eyes on a
bouquet of lilies of the valley that stood on the table in a bronze
vase.
M. Riviere took a handful of them, and gave them to her. They had not
been cut; they had been pulled up by the roots. Eleanore laughed happily
at the fragrance.
M. Riviere said he was just about to write to his mother in Paris, and
as she was so familiar with the city, she could be of great help to
Eleanore.
Eleanore stepped out on the balcony. "The world is beautiful," she
thought, and smiled at the fruitless efforts of a tiny beetle to climb
up a perpendicular leaf. "Perhaps it was after all merely a dream," she
thought, and thereby consoled herself.
When she returned, Daniel was at her father's. The two men were sitting
in the dark.
Eleanore lighted the lamp. Then she filled a glass with water, and put
the lilies of the valley in it.
"Daniel wants to know why you never visit them any more," said Jordan,
weak and distraught as he now always was. "I told him you were busy at
present with great plans of your own. Well, what does the Frenchman
think about it?"
Eleanore answered her father's question in a half audible voice.
"Go wherever you want to go, child," said Jordan. "You have been
prepared for an independent life in the world for a long while; there is
no doubt about that. God forbid that I should put any hindrances in your
way." He got up with difficulty, and turned toward the door of his room.
Taking hold of the latch, he stopped, and continued in his brooding way:
"It is peculiar that a man can die by inches in a living body; that a
man can have the feeling that he's no longer a part of the present; and
that he can no longer play his role, keep up with his own people, grasp
what is going on about him, or know whether what is to come is good or
evil. It is fearful when a man reaches that stage, fearful--fearful!"
He left the room, shaking his head. To Daniel his words sounded like a
voice from the grave.
They had been silent for a long while, he and Eleanore. Suddenly he
asked gruffly: "Are you serious about going to Paris?"
"Of course I am," she said, "what else can I do?"
He sprang up, and looked angrily into her face: "One has to be ashamed
of one's self," he said, "human language becomes repulsive. Don't you
have a feeling of horror when you think? Don't you shudder when you
reflect on that caricature known as the heart, or the soul, or whatever
it may be called?"
"I don't understand you, Daniel," said Eleanore. She would never have
considered it possible that he would look with disfavour on her
contrition and the decision that had sprung from it. Then it had not
after all been the flash of a solitary second? Had she not hoped and
expected to hear a self-accusation from him that would make her forget
all and forgive herself? Where was she? In what world or age was she
living?
"Do you believe that I merely wanted to enjoy a diverting and momentary
side-step?" Daniel continued, measuring her with his eyes from head to
foot. "Do you believe that it is possible to jest with the most sacred
laws of nature? You have had a good schooling, I must say; you do your
teachers honour. Go! I don't need you. Go to Paris, and let me
degenerate!"
He stepped to the door. Then he turned, and took the lamp, which she had
removed from the holder when she lighted it. Holding the lamp in his
right hand, he walked close up to her. Her eyes closed involuntarily.
"I simply wanted to see whether it was really you," he said with
passionate contempt. "Yes, it is you," he said scornfully, "it is you."
With that he placed the lamp on the table.
"I don't understand you, Daniel," she said softly. She looked around for
some object to rest her eyes on.
"So I see. Good night."
"Daniel!"
But he had already gone. The hall door closed with a bang. The house
sang with solitude.
The green threadbare sofa, the old, old smoke stains on the whitewashed
ceiling, the five rickety chairs that reminded her of so many decrepit
old men, the mirror with the gilded angel of stucco at the top--all
these things were so tiring, so irksome, so annoying: they were like
underbrush in the forest.
Little brother! Little brother!