I
Daniel and Eleanore had reached a stage of mutual silence; it was not
the first time, however, and it was as disagreeable now as it had been
then. They would meet on the steps, and pass each other with a mere nod.
If Eleanore came in to see Gertrude, Daniel withdrew.
Once Eleanore called when Gertrude was not at home. Daniel was stubborn;
nor could Eleanore manage to make a single rational remark. He did not
like her looks; he suspected her paleness and outward, enforced
cheerfulness. "It is an undignified state of affairs, Eleanore," he
exclaimed, "we must make an end of it."
Make an end of it? Yes--but how? This was the thought that came at once
to Eleanore's mind. Every day the chain that bound her to him became
stronger.
Daniel was also tortured by the sight of Gertrude. He felt that she was
watching him and that she was worried about him. More than that, the
event was approaching that surrounded her with an atmosphere of
suffering and made forbearance obligatory. Her features, though haggard
and distorted, bore nevertheless an expression of mysterious
transfiguration.
After Gertrude had noticed for some time that Daniel was being estranged
from his work and that he had lost interest in everything, she decided
to have a talk with Eleanore. She did it without preparation or
tenderness.
"Can't you see that you are ruining him?" she cried.
"You want me to be ruined, do you?" asked Eleanore, in surprised dismay.
She had appreciated at once and without difficulty the complete range of
Gertrude's renunciation.
"What difference does it make about you?" replied Gertrude harshly;
"what are you getting excited about?"
This question made Eleanore's ideas of order and duty quake and totter.
She looked at her sister with incredulous eyes and in perfect silence.
It was not the happy, gentle Gertrude that had spoken, but the Gertrude
of months ago, the lonely, loveless Gertrude.
What difference does it make about you? Why are you getting excited?
That was equivalent to saying: Make short work of your life, and don't
draw out the episode in his life any longer than you have to.
Eleanore took courage to carry out the plan she had had in mind for a
long while and in which she placed her last hope.
One evening she went to Daniel and said: "I should like to go with you
to Eschenbach, Daniel, and visit your mother."
"Why do you wish to do that?" he asked in amazement. He and his mother
did not write to each other: that was due first of all to their natures,
and secondly to the condition in which each was now living. But he knew
that Eleanore received an occasional letter from Eschenbach which she
answered without consulting him. This had never seemed strange to him
until now.
A few days later she repeated her wish; Daniel granted it. They decided
upon the following Sunday for the excursion.