On the way home Daniel walked with Eleanore. Gertrude followed at some
distance with M. Riviere; she could not walk rapidly.
"How did you find it, Eleanore? Didn't you have the feeling that you
were at a feast of corpses?"
"Dear," she murmured; they walked on.
After they had gone along for some time in perfect silence, they came to
a narrow gateway. Eleanore suddenly felt that she could no longer endure
Daniel's mute questioning. She pulled her silk veil closer to her
cheeks, and said: "Give me time! Don't hurry me! Please give me time!"
"If I hadn't given you time, my dear girl, I should not have deserved
this moment," he replied.
"I cannot, I cannot," she said, with a sigh of despair. She had only one
hope, one ray of hope left, and her whole soul was fixed on that. But
she was obliged to act in silence.
Standing in the living room with Gertrude, Daniel's eye fell on the mask
of Zingarella; it had been decorated with rose twigs. Under the green
young leaves fresh buds shone forth; they hung around the white stucco
of the mask like so many little red lanterns. "Who did that?" he asked.
"Eleanore was here in the afternoon; she did it," replied Gertrude.
His burning eyes were riveted on the mask, when Gertrude stepped up to
him, threw her arms around him, and in the fulness of her feelings
exclaimed: "Daniel, your work was wonderful, wonderful!"
"So? Did you like it? I am glad to hear it," he said, in a tone of dry
conventionality.
"The people don't grasp it," she said gently, and then added with a
blush: "But I understand it; I understand it, for it belongs to me."
The following day he laid the score of the "Harzreise" together with the
words in a big old chest, and locked it. It was like a funeral.