It was Carnival Week, and the people had resumed their wonted gaiety.
Masked boys and girls paraded the streets, making merry wherever they
went.
As Daniel was passing through The Fuell he was startled: the windows in
the Benda house were lighted. He suddenly recalled that Herr Seelenfromm
had told him that Frau Benda had returned from Worms some time ago, and
was living with her niece; she had become totally blind.
He went up the steps and rang the bell. A grey-haired,
distressed-looking woman came to the door. He thought she must be the
niece. He told her his name; she said she had heard of him.
"You probably know that Friedrich has disappeared," she said in a
sleepy, sing-song voice. "It is eight years since we have heard from
him. The last letter was from the interior of Africa. We have given up
all hope. Not even the newspapers say anything more about him."
"I have read nothing about it," murmured Daniel. "But Friedrich cannot
be dead," he continued, shaking his head, "I will never believe it,
never." Partly in distraction and partly in anxiety, he riveted his eyes
on the woman, who stared at his glasses as if held by a charm.
"We have done everything that was humanly possible," she said. "We have
written to the consulates, we have inquired of the military outposts and
missionary stations, and all to no purpose." After a pause she said with
a little more vivacity: "You do not wish me to ask you in, I hope. It is
so painful to my aunt to hear a strange voice, and I cannot think of
letting you talk to her. If I did, it would merely open her old wounds,
and she has a hard enough time of it as it is."
Daniel nodded and went on his way. A coarse laugh could be heard down in
the entrance hall; it was painfully out of harmony with the depressed
atmosphere of the Benda apartment. He felt his heart grow faint; he felt
a burning desire for something, though he was unable to say precisely
what, something sweet and radiant.
On the last landing he stopped, and looked with utter amazement into
the hall below.
Herr Carovius was dancing like a Merry-Andrew around the door of his
residence. He had a crown of silver paper on his head, and was trying to
ward off the importunate advances of a young girl. His smiles were
tender but senile. The girl wore a carnival costume. Her dark blue
velvet dress, covered with threads of silver, made her robust figure
look slenderer than it actually was. A black veil-like cloth hung from
her shoulders to the ground, and then draped along behind her for about
three paces. It was sprinkled with glittering tinsel. In her hand she
held a hideous wax mask of the face of an old sot with a red nose. She
was trying to fit the mask to Herr Carovius's face.
She was working hard to make him yield; she said she was not going to
leave until she had put the mask on his face. Herr Carovius shook the
door, which in the meantime had closed, fumbled about in his pockets for
the key, but the girl gave him no peace.
"Come now, Teddy," she kept crying, "come, Uncle, don't be such an old
bore." She kept getting closer and closer to him.
"You wait, I'll show you how to make a fool of respectable people,"
croaked Herr Carovius in well-meaning anger. He resembled an old dog,
hopping about and getting ready to make the plunge when his master
throws his walking stick into the water. In his zeal, however, to
prevent the girl from offending his dignity, he had forgotten the paper
crown on his head. It wabbled and shook so when he hopped around, that
the girl nearly split her sides laughing.
A maid came in just then with an apronful of snow. The girl with the
sweeping train ran up to her, got some of the snow, and threatened to
pelt Herr Carovius with it. He begged for mercy; and rather than undergo
a bombardment with this cold stuff, he ceased offering resistance,
whereupon the girl walked up to him and placed the mask on his face.
Then, exhausted from laughter, she laid her head on his shoulder. The
maid--it was Doederlein's maid--was delighted at the comedy, and made a
noise that resembled the cackling of a hen.
The scene was dimly lighted by a lamp attached to the adjacent wall, and
had on this account, quite apart from the sight of Herr Carovius with
the paper crown and the toper's mask, something fantastic about it.
Daniel did not know that the girl was Dorothea Doederlein, though he
half suspected as much. But whoever she was, he was impressed by her
jollity, her actual lust for laughter, her complete lack of restraint.
He had never known that sort of mirthful hilarity; and if he had known
it, he could not recall it. Her youthful features, her bright eyes, her
white teeth, her agile gestures filled him with deferential respect; his
eyes swam with emotion. He felt so old, so foreign; he felt that where
he was the sun was not shining, the flowers were not budding. He felt
that life had appeared to him all of a sudden and quite unexpectedly in
a new, kindly, bewitching light.
He came slowly down the steps.
"Is it possible!" cried Herr Carovius, tearing the mask from his face.
"Can I trust my own eyes? It is our _maestro_! Or is it his ghost?"
"It is both he and his ghost," replied Daniel drily.
"This is no place for ghosts," cried Dorothea, and threw a snow ball,
hitting him square on the shoulder.
Daniel looked at her; she blushed, and looked at Herr Carovius
questioningly. "Don't you know our Daniel Nothafft, you little
ignoramus?" said Herr Carovius. "You know nothing of our coryphaeus? Hail
to the Master! Welcome home! He is here, covered with fame!"
At any other time Herr Carovius's biliary sarcasm would have aroused
Daniel's whole stock-in-trade of aversion and indignation. To-day he was
unimpressed by it. "How young she is," he thought, as he feasted his
eyes on the embarrassed, laughing Dorothea, "how gloriously young!"
Dorothea was angry because she did not have on the red dress she had had
made in Munich.
"Dorothea!" called a strong voice from the first floor.
"Oh, there's father!" whispered Dorothea. She was frightened. She ran up
the steps on her tiptoes, dragging her long veil after her. The maid
followed her.
"A devil, a regular little devil, _Maestro_," said Herr Carovius turning
to Daniel. "You must come in some time and hear how she can draw the
bow. She's a regular little devil, I say."
Daniel bade Herr Carovius adieu, and went walking down the street with
bowed head.