A warm, languid October sun shone over the land; the forests presented a
gorgeous array of autumnal foliage; the fields lay stretched in barren
rows; along the hills of Franconia floated clouds that looked like down
driven by the wind.
They had taken the train as far as Triesdorf; from there they went on to
Merckendorf by stage coach. The rest of the distance they walked. Daniel
pointed to a flock of geese that were trotting around on the shore of an
abandoned pond, and said: "That is our national bird; his cackle is our
music. But it doesn't sound so bad."
A peasant woman passed by, and made the sign of the cross before the
picture of a saint: "It is strange that everything has suddenly become
Catholic," said Eleanore.
Daniel nodded, and replied that when his father moved to Eschenbach a
few other Protestant families were living there, all of whom joined in
Protestant worship. Later, he said, most of them emigrated, leaving his
mother as the only Protestant, so far as he knew, in the neighbourhood.
But, Daniel remarked in the course of conversation, his mother had never
had any unpleasant experience on this account, and he himself had
frequently gone to church, primarily of course to hear the organ, though
no one had ever taken offence at this. "There is a totally different
type of people here," he added, "people who lay greater stress on
externals than we do, and yet are more secretive."
Eleanore looked at the church tower whose Spanish-green roof rose from
the valley. After a long silence she said: "I wonder whether it will be
a boy or a girl, Gertrude's baby? Oh, a girl, of course. Some day it
will be in the world, and will look at me with eyes, with real eyes. How
strange that a child of yours should look at me!"
"What is there strange about that? Many children are born, many look at
some one."
"What are you going to call it?" asked Eleanore.
"If it is blond and has blue eyes like yours, I am going to call it
Eva."
"Eva!" cried Eleanore, "no, that won't do." She herself had chosen the
name of Eva for the child of the maid at the Ruedigers'. That he should
now want to call Gertrude's child by the same name seemed so strange to
her.
"Why not Eva?" he asked. "There is something back of this objection on
your part. Women always have something up their sleeve. Out with it! Why
do you object to Eva?"
Eleanore smiled, and shook her head. She would have liked to make a
clean confession to him, but she was not certain how he would take it:
she was afraid he would turn back, enraged at her cunning. Once the
child had been born and lay there before him, it would captivate him,
and she knew it.
They had stopped and were looking out over the sunlit plains. "How alone
we are!" said Daniel.
"Everything is easier here," said Eleanore thoughtfully. "If one could
only forget where one comes from, it would be easy to be happy."