Daniel's approaching fortieth birthday seemed like a sombre portal
leading to the realm of spent ambition. "Seize what remains to be
seized," a voice within him cried. "Grass is growing on the graves."
His senses were at war with his intellect and his heart. He had never
looked on women as he was looking on them now.
One day he went out to Siegmundshof. Eberhard was not at home. Sylvia's
face showed traces of subdued sadness. She had three children, each one
more beautiful than the other, but when her eyes rested on them her
heart was filled with grief. Women whose married life is unhappy have
dull, lifeless features; their hands are transparent and yellow.
Daniel took leave more quickly than he had wished or intended. He felt
an egoistic aversion to the joyless sons of man.
He went to see Herr Carovius. The laughing one whom he sought was not at
home.
Herr Carovius looked at him at times distrustfully. The face of his
former foe set him to thinking. It was furrowed like a field under
cultivation and burnt like a hearthstone. It was the face of a criminal,
crabbed, enervated, tense, and breathed upon, it seemed, by threatening
clouds. Herr Carovius was a connoisseur of faces.
In order to avoid the discomfort of fatuous conversation, Daniel played
a number of old motetts for Herr Carovius. Herr Carovius was so pleased
that he ran into his pantry, and got a half dozen Boxdorf apples and put
them in Daniel's pockets. He bought these apples every autumn by the
peck, and cherished them as so many priceless treasures.
"At the sound of such music it would not be difficult to become a real
Christian," he said.
"There is spring in them," said Daniel, "they are art that is as
innocent as new seed in the soil. But your piano needs tuning."
"Symbolic, symbolic, my dear friend," cried Herr Carovius, and puffed
out his cheeks. "But you come back another time, and you will find it in
the pink of condition. Come frequently, please. You will reap the reward
of Heaven if you do."
Herr Carovius begging for company; it was touching. Daniel promised to
bring some of the manuscripts he had been collecting along with him.
When he returned a few days later, Dorothea was there; and from then on
she was always there. His visits became longer and longer. When Herr
Carovius noticed that Dorothea was coming to see him more frequently
now, he moved heaven and earth to persuade Daniel to come more
frequently. He rained reproach and abuse on him if he failed to come; if
he was late, he greeted him with a sour face and put indiscreet
questions to him. When he was alone of an afternoon, time stood still.
He was like a drinker tantalised by seeing his accustomed portion of
brandy on the table but just beyond his reach. The company of these two
people, Daniel and Dorothea, had become as indispensable to his
happiness as in former years the reading of the newspapers, the brethren
of the Vale of Tears, the troubles of Eberhard and the funerals were
indispensable if he were to feel at ease. It is the way of the small
citizen: each of his customs becomes a passion.
When Daniel played the old chorals, Dorothea listened quietly, though it
could not be said that she was perfect at concealing her tedium.
One time they began talking about Dorothea's violin playing. Herr
Carovius asked her to play something. She declined without the slightest
display of affectation. Daniel said nothing to encourage her; he found
that this modesty was becoming to her; he believed that he detected
wisdom and resignation in her behaviour; he smiled at her graciously.
"Tell us a story, Daniel," she said, "that would be better." It
eventually came out that that was what she had wanted all along.
"I am a poor raconteur," said Daniel. "I have a thick tongue."
She begged him, however, with stammering words and beseeching gestures.
Herr Carovius tittered. Daniel took off his glasses, polished them, and
looked at the young girl with squinting eyes. It seemed as if the
glasses had made it difficult for him to see Dorothea distinctly, or as
if he preferred to see her indistinctly. "I really don't know what I
could tell in the way of a story," he replied, shaking his head.
"Tell us everything, anything," cried Dorothea, seized with a veritable
fit of eagerness to hear him talk. She stretched out her hands toward
him: that seemed to him to be so like a child. He had never told stories
to a child; he had never in truth told stories to any one. Gertrude and
Eleanore had, to be sure, forced a confession or a complaint from him at
times, but that was all, and all that was necessary or appropriate.
Suddenly he was drawn on by the word in which his fate would be quietly
reflected; by the fiery young eye in the brilliancy of which the complex
became simple, the dark bright; by the wicked old man to whom the whole
world, as seen from his mire, had become a poisonous food.
And with his brittle, staccato voice he told of the countries through
which he had journeyed; of the sea and the cities by the sea; of the
Alps and the Alpine lakes; of cathedrals, palaces, and marvellous
monasteries; of the queer people he had met, of his work and his
loneliness. It was all incoherent, arid, and loveless. Though sorely
tempted, he desisted from mentioning things that came close to his soul;
things that moved his heart, fired his brain. When he told of the
Jewess, the Swallow, he did not even finish the sentence. He made a long
pause, and then shifted to the account of his visit to Eschenbach. Here
he stopped again before he was through.
But Dorothea began to ask questions. It was all too general and
therefore unsatisfactory. "What was there in Eschenbach? Why did you go
there?" she asked boldly.
He was in error concerning the hot desire that burned in her eyes to
know about Eschenbach. Her question made him feel good; he believed that
he was on the scent of warm-heartedness; he thought he had found a soul
that was eager to help through knowledge. He was seized with the desire
of the mature man to fashion an untouched soul in harmony with the
picture of his dreams. "My mother used to live there," he replied
hesitatingly, "she has died."
"Yes--and?" breathed Dorothea. She saw that that was not all.
He felt that this uncompromising reticence was not right; he felt a
sense of guilt. With still greater hesitation--and immediate
repentance--he added: "A child of mine also lived there; she was eleven
years old. She has disappeared; no one knows where she is."
Dorothea folded her hands, "A child? And disappeared? Simply vanished?"
she whispered excitedly.
Herr Carovius looked like a man sitting on a hot iron. "Eleven years
old?" he asked, hungry for sensation, "why--that was, then--before the
time ..."
"Yes, it was before the time," said Daniel gloomily and by way of
confirmation. He had betrayed himself, and was angry at himself for
having done so. He became silent; it was impossible to get him to say
another word.
Herr Carovius noticed how Dorothea hung on Daniel's eyes. A tormenting
suspicion arose in him. "Yesterday out on St. Joseph's Place, I was
talking with one of your admirers, the fellow who shatters the wings of
the stage with his ranting," he began with malice aforethought. "The
blade had the nerve to say to me: 'You'd better hurry up and get
Dorothea Doederlein a husband, or people will talk their tongues loose in
their throats.'"
"That is not true," cried Dorothea indignantly, blushing to the roots of
her hair. "He didn't say that."
Herr Carovius laughed malevolently. "Well, if it is not true, it is
pretty well put together," he said with his usual bleat.
When Daniel left, Dorothea accompanied him to the outside door.
"It's a pity," murmured Daniel, "a pity!"
"Why a pity? I am free. There isn't a soul in the world who has any
claim on me." She looked at him with the courage of a real woman.
"There are remarks that are just like grease spots," he replied.
"Well, who can keep from the dirt these days?" she asked, almost wild
with excitement.
Daniel let his eyes rest on her as though she were some material object.
He said slowly and seriously: "Keep your hands and your eyes off of me,
Dorothea. I will bring you no happiness."
Her lips opened, thirsty. "I should like to take a walk with you some
time," she whispered, and her features trembled with an ecstasy which he
was dupe enough to believe was meant for him; in reality Dorothea was
thinking of the adventurer and the disclosure of the secret.
"Many years ago," said Daniel, "you will scarcely recall it, I protected
you here in this very same gateway from a big dog. Do you remember?"
"No! Or do I? Wait a minute! Yes, I remember, that is, quite
indistinctly. You did that?" Dorothea seized his hands with gratitude.
"Fine! Then we will go walking to-morrow morning. Where? Oh, it doesn't
make much difference," said Daniel.
"But you must tell me everything, you hear? everything." Dorothea was as
insistent as she had been in the room a short while ago; and she was
more impetuous and impatient.
They agreed upon the place where they would meet.