That summer Daniel came to Aix-la-Chapelle and the region of Liege,
Louvain, and Malines. From there he wandered on foot to Ghent and
Bruges.
In places where he had to make investigations, he was obliged to depend
upon the letters he received from his publisher to make himself
understood. Condemned to silence, he lived very much alone; he was a
stranger in a strange land.
He had no interest in sights. It was rare that he looked at old
paintings. The beautiful never caused him to stop unless it actually
blocked his way. He went about as if in between two walls. He followed
his nose, turned around only with the greatest reluctance, and never
felt tired until he was ready to lie down to sleep.
And even when he was tired the feeling that he was being robbed of
something gnawed at his soul; he was restless even when he slept. Haste
coloured his eye, fashioned his step, and moulded his deeds. He ate his
meals in haste, wrote his letters in haste, and talked in haste.
It pained him to feel that men were looking at him. Although he
invariably sought out the most deserted corner of whatever inn he
chanced to stop at, and thereby avoided becoming, so far as he might,
the target of the curious, he was nevertheless gaped at, watched, and
studied wherever he went. For everything about him was conspicuous: the
energy of his gestures, the agility of his mimicry, the way he showed
his teeth, and the nervous, hacking step with which he moved through
groups of gossiping people.
He had anticipated with rare pleasure the sight of the sea. He was
prepared to behold the monstrous, titanic, seething, and surging
element, the tempest of the Apocalypse. He was disappointed by the
peaceful rise and fall of the tide, the harmless rolling back and forth
of the waves. He concluded that it were better for one not to become
acquainted with things that had inspired one's fancy with reverential
awe.
He could quarrel with nature just as he could quarrel with men. The
phases of nature which he regarded as her imperfections excited his
anger. He was fond, however, of a certain spot in the forest; or he
liked a tree in the plain, or sunset along the canal.
He liked best of all the narrow streets of the cities, when the gentle
murmurings of song wafted forth from the open windows, or when the light
from the lamp shone forth from the windows after they had been closed.
He loved to pass by courts and cellars, gates and fences; when the face
of an old man, or that of a young girl, came suddenly to view, when
workmen went home from the factories, or soldiers from the barracks, or
seamen from the harbours, he saw a story in each of them; he felt as one
feels on reading an exciting book.
One day when he was in Cleve he walked the streets at night all alone.
He noticed a man and a woman and five children, all poorly dressed,
standing near a church. Lying before them on the pavement were several
bundles containing their earthly possessions. A man came up after a
while and addressed them in a stern, domineering tone; they picked up
their bundles and followed him: it was a mournful procession. They were
emigrants; the man had told them about their ship.
Daniel felt as if a cord in his soul had been made taut and were
vibrating without making a sound. The steps of the eight people, as
they died away in the distance, developed gradually into a rhythmical,
musical movement. What had been confused became ordered; what had been
dark shone forth in light. Weighed down with heaviness of soul, he went
on, his eyes fixed on the ground as if he were looking for something. He
no longer saw, nor could he hear. Nor did he know what time it was.
After a year and a half of congealed torpidity, the March wind once more
began to blow in his soul.
But it was like a disease; he was being consumed with impatience. His
immediate goal was the cloister of Oesede at Osnabrueck, and from there he
wanted to go to Berlin. He could not bear to sit in the railway
carriages: in Wesel he placed his trunk on a freight train, and went
from there on foot, his top-coat hung over his arm, his knapsack
strapped across his back. Despite the inclement weather he walked from
eight to ten hours every day. It was towards the end of October, the
mornings and evenings were chilly, the roads were muddy, the inns were
wretched. This did not deter him from going on: he walked and walked,
sought and sought, often until late at night, passionately absorbed in
himself.
When he came to the coal and iron district, he raised his head more and
more frequently. The houses were black, the earth and the air were
black, blackened men met him on the road. Copper wires hummed in the fog
and mist, hammers clinked, wheels hummed, chimneys smoked, whistles
blew--it was like a dream vision, like the landscape of an unknown and
accursed star.
One evening he left a little inn which he had entered to get something
to eat and drink. It was eight miles to Dortmund, where he planned to
stay over night. He had left the main road, when all of a sudden the
fire from the blast-furnaces leaped up, giving the mist the appearance
of a blood-red sea. Miners were coming in to the village; in the light
of the furnaces their tired, blackened faces looked like so many
demoniac caricatures. Far or near, it was impossible to say, a horse
could be seen drawing a car over shining rails. On it stood a man
flourishing his whip. Beast, man, and car all seemed to be of colossal
size; the "gee" and "haw" of the driver sounded like the mad cries of a
spectre; the iron sounds from the forges resembled the bellowing of
tormented creatures.
Daniel had found what he had been looking for: he had found the mournful
melody that had driven him away the day Eleanore died. He had, to be
sure, put it on the paper then and there, but it had remained without
consequence: it had been buried in the grave with Eleanore.
Now it had arisen, and its soul--its consequence--had arisen with it; it
was expanded into a wonderful arch, arranged and limbed like a body, and
filled as the world is full.
Music had been born to him again from the machine, from the world of
machinery.