I
A few days later, Herr Carovius carried out the scheme he had decided
upon at the time his heart became so embittered at Eleanore's marriage.
It was the end of March. Herr Carovius had learned that the old Baron
had just returned from Berlin. He went around to his house, and sent in
his card. The butler came out, and told him that the Baron could receive
no one, that he should state his business in writing.
Herr Carovius, however, wanted to see his debtor face to face: this was
the heart of his dream. When he came back a second time and was again
told that he could not see the Baron, he began to storm and bluster, and
insisted that they should at least let him talk with the Baroness.
The Baroness was just then taking her music lesson. The fifteen-year-old
Dorothea Doederlein, who gave promise of developing into a remarkable
virtuoso on the violin, was playing some sonatas with the Baroness.
Andreas Doederlein had recognised her talents when she was a mere child.
Since her tenth year, she had been obliged to practise six hours every
day. She had had a great number of different teachers, all of whom had
been brought to the point of despair by her intractability. In the
presence of her father, however, she was meek: to him she bowed.
Andreas Doederlein had recommended his daughter to the Baroness in words
replete with objective recognition. The Baroness declared her
willingness to play with Dorothea. Andreas Doederlein had said to her:
"Now you have a chance to rise in the world through powerful influence;
don't neglect it! The Baroness loves the emotional; be emotional. At
times she will demand the demoniac; be obedient. Like all rich people,
she is pampering some grief _de luxe_; don't disturb her!"
Dorothea was docile.
They were playing Beethoven's spring sonatas, when the altercation began
out in the vestibule. The maid came in and whispered something to her
mistress. The Baroness arose and went to the door. Dorothea laid her
violin in her lap, and looked around in affected astonishment, as though
she were coming out of a dream.
At a sign from the Baroness the old servant gave Herr Carovius a free
path. He went in: his face was red; he made a quite ridiculous bow. His
eyes drank in the velvet portieres, the cut glass mirrors, the crystal
vases, and the bronze statuettes. In the meantime, and without fail, he
had placed his right hand against his hip, giving the fine effect of
right akimbo, and set one foot very elegantly a trifle more to the fore
than the other: he looked like a provincial dancing-master.
He complained of the presumptuousness of the servants, and assured the
Baroness that she was in complete enjoyment of his deference. He spoke
of his good intentions and the pressure of circumstances. When the
impatient bearing of his sole but distinguished auditor at last obliged
him to come to the real purpose of his visit, the Baroness twitched; for
from his flood of words there emerged, as she heard them, nothing but
the name of her son.
With panting sounds she came up to Herr Carovius, and took him by the
coat-sleeve. Her dim, black eyes became as round as little bullets; the
supplicating expression in them was so much balm to the soul of her
visitor.
Herr Carovius was enchanted; he was having the time of a scurvy life; he
became impudent; he wanted to take vengeance on the mother against the
son. He saw that the Baroness did not correspond to the picture he had
made of a creature who belonged to the aristocracy. In his imagination
she had lived as a domineering, imperious, inaccessible phenomenon: and
now there stood before him an old, obese, worried woman. On this account
he gave his voice a shriller tone, his face a more scurrilous expression
than was his wont. Then he launched forth on a graphic narration of the
unhappy plight in which he now found himself as a result of his
association with Baron von Eberhard, Jr.
He claimed that it was nothing but his own good nature that had got him
into this trouble. And yet, what was he to do? The Baron would have
starved to death, or become morally depraved, if he had not come to his
spiritual and pecuniary rescue, for the young man was sadly wanting in
the powers of moral resistance. And what had he gained by all this
altruism? Ingratitude, bitter ingratitude!
"He plundered me; he took my last cent, and then acted as if it were my
damned duty to go through fire for his baronical excellency," screamed
Herr Carovius. "Before I came to know him I was a well-to-do man; I
could enjoy myself; I could reap the higher pleasures of human
existence. To-day I am ruined. My money is wasted, my house is burdened
with mortgages, my peace of mind has gone plumb to the Devil. Two
hundred and seventy-six thousand marks is what the young man owes me and
my business friends. Yes--two hundred and seventy-six thousand marks,
including interest and interest on the interest, all neatly noted down
and signed up by the duly authorised parties. Am I to let him slam the
door in my face because of his indebtedness to me? I think you will see
yourself that that cannot be expected of me. He at least owes me a
little respect for what I have done for him."
The Baroness had listened to all this with folded hands and unfixed
eyes. But the close of the story was too much for her: she threw herself
on a great divan, overcome--for the time being--with worry and maternal
weakness. A grin strayed across Herr Carovius's face. He twirled his
Calabrian headpiece in his hands, and let his leery eyes wander about
the walls. Then it was that he caught sight of Dorothea, whom he had
thus far failed to see in his intoxication of wrath and rapture.
When Herr Carovius entered, Dorothea, out of discretion rather than with
serious intent, had made herself as small as possible in the most remote
corner of the room. Trembling with curious excitement, she had wished to
evade the eye of her uncle Carovius, for in very truth she was ashamed
of him.
She regarded him as a sort of comic freak, who, though he had enough to
live on, could not be said to be in the best of circumstances. When he
rolled the sum the Auffenberg family owed him from his tongue, she was
filled with astonishment and delight, and from then on she took a
totally different view of him.
During the last few years Herr Carovius had seen very little of
Dorothea. Whenever he had met her, she had passed by him in great haste.
He knew that she was taking violin lessons: he had often heard her
screechy fiddling on the stairs and out in the hall.
He fixed his eyes on her, and exclaimed: "Well I'm a son-of-a-gun if
there isn't Doederlein's daughter! How did you get here? Aha, you are
going about and showing the people what you can do! I should think you
and your creator would have had enough of music by this time."
The Baroness, recalling that the young girl was present, raised her
eyes and looked at Dorothea reproachfully. For the first time in her
life she felt that the resources she had managed to extract from a life
of neglect were about exhausted; for the first time in her life she felt
a shudder at the thought of her musical stupefactions.
She asked Herr Carovius to have patience, adding that he would hear from
her in a few days--as soon as she had talked the matter over with her
husband. She nipped in the bud a zealous reply he was about to make, and
nodded a momentary farewell to Dorothea, who put her violin in the case,
took the case in her hand, curtsied, and followed her uncle out of the
room.
She remained at his side; they went along the street together. Herr
Carovius turned to her from time to time, and made some rancorous
remark. She smiled modestly.
With that began the strange relation that existed between the two from
then on.