Among the suitors for the hand of Dorothea on whom Andreas Doederlein
looked with special favour was the mill owner, a man by the name of
Weisskopf. Herr Weisskopf was passionately fond of music. He had greatly
admired Dorothea when she gave her concert, and had sent her a laurel
wreath.
One day Herr Weisskopf came in and took dinner with the Doederleins. When
he left, Doederlein said to his daughter: "My dear Dorothea, from this
day on you may consider yourself betrothed. This admirable man desires
to have you as his lawfully wedded wife. It is a great good fortune; the
man is as rich as Croesus."
Instead of making a reply, Dorothea laughed heartily. But she knew that
the time had come when something had to be done. Her mobile face
twitched with scorn, fear, and desire.
"Think it over; sleep on it. I have promised Herr Weisskopf to let him
know to-morrow," said Doederlein, black-browed.
A week before this, Andreas Doederlein, confidently expecting that Herr
Weisskopf would ask for the hand of his daughter, had borrowed a
thousand marks from him. The miller had loaned him the money believing
that he was thereby securing a promissory note on Dorothea. Doederlein
had placed himself under obligations, and was consequently determined to
carry out his plans with regard to the marriage of his daughter.
But Dorothea's behaviour made it safe to predict that objections would
be raised on her part. Doederlein was in trouble; he sought distraction.
Sixteen years ago he had begun an _opus_ entitled "All Souls: a
Symphonic Picture." Five pages of the score had been written, and since
then he had never undertaken creative work. He rummaged around in his
desk, found the score, went to the piano, and tried to take up the
thread where he had lost it sixteen years ago. He tried to imagine the
intervening time merely as a pause, an afternoon siesta.
It would not go. He sighed. He sat before the instrument, and stared at
the paper like a schoolboy who has a problem to solve but has forgotten
the rule. He seemed to lament the loss of his artistic ability. He felt
so hollow. The notes grinned at him; they mocked him. His thoughts
turned involuntarily to the miller. He improvised for a while. Dorothea
stuck her head in the door and sang: "Rhinegold, Rhinegold, pu-re gold."
He was enraged; he got up, slammed the lid of the piano, took his hat
and top coat, left the house, and went out to see his friend in the
suburbs.
When he returned that night, he saw Dorothea standing in the door with a
man. It was the actor, Edmund Hahn. They were carrying on a heated
conversation in whispers. The man was holding Dorothea by the arm, but
when Doederlein became visible from the unlighted street, he uttered an
ugly oath and quickly disappeared.
Dorothea looked her father straight, and impudently, in the face, and
followed him into the dark house.
When they were upstairs and had lighted the lamp, Doederlein turned to
her, and asked her threateningly: "What do you mean by these immodest
associations? Tell me! I want an answer!"
"I don't want to marry your flour sack. That's my answer," said
Dorothea, with a defiant toss of her head.
"Well, we'll see," said Doederlein, pale with rage and ploughing through
his hair with his fingers, "we'll see. Get out of here! I have no desire
to lose my well-earned sleep on account of such an ungrateful hussy.
We'll take up the subject again to-morrow morning."
The next morning Dorothea hastened to Herr Carovius. "Uncle," she
stammered, "he wants to marry me to that flour sack."
"Yes? Well, I suppose I'll have to visit that second-rate musician in
his studio again and give him a piece of my mind. In the meantime be
calm, my child, be calm," said he, stroking her brown hair, "Old
Carovius is still alive."
Dorothea nestled up to him, and smiled: "What would you say, Uncle," she
began with a knavish and at the same time unusually attentive expression
in her face, "if I were to marry Daniel Nothafft? You like him," she
continued in a flattering tone, and held him fast by the shoulder when
he started back, "you like him, I know you do. I must marry somebody;
for I do not wish to be an old maid, and I can't stand Father any
longer."
Herr Carovius tore himself loose from her. "To the insane asylum with
you!" he cried. "I would rather see you go to bed with that meal sack.
Is the Devil in you, you prostitute? If your skin itches, scratch it, so
far as I am concerned, but take a stable boy to do it, as Empress
Katherine of blessed memory did. Buy fine dresses, bedizen yourself with
tom-foolery of all shades and colours, go to dances and lap up
champagne, make music or throw your damn fiddle on the dung heap, do
anything you want to do, I'll pay for it; but that green-eyed phantast,
that lunk-headed rat-catcher, that woman-eater and music-box bird, no,
no! Never! Send him humping down the stairs and out the front door! For
God's sake and the sake of all the saints, don't marry him! Don't, I
say. If you do, it's all off between you and me."
There was such a look of hate and fear in Herr Carovius's face that
Dorothea was almost frightened. His hair was as towsled as the twigs of
an abandoned bird's nest; water was dripping from the corners of his
mouth; his eyes were inflamed; his glasses were on the tip of his nose.
Nothing could have made Dorothea more pleased with the story Daniel had
told her than Herr Carovius's ravings. Her eyes were opened wide, her
mouth was thirsty. If she had hesitated at times before, she did so no
more. She loved money; greed was a part of her make-up from the hour
she was born. But if Herr Carovius had laid the whole of his treasures
at her feet, and said to her, "You may have them if you will renounce
Daniel Nothafft," she would have replied, "Your money, my Daniel."
Something terribly strange and strong drew her to the man she had just
heard so volubly cursed. That sensual prickling was of a more dangerous
violence and warmth in his presence than in that of any other man she
had ever known; and she had known a number. To her he was a riddle and a
mystery; she wanted to solve the one and clear up the other. He had
possessed so many women, indubitably more than he had confessed to her;
and she wished now to possess him. He was so quiet, so clever, so
resolute: she wanted his quietness, his cleverness, his resoluteness.
She wanted everything he had, his charm, his magic, his power over men,
all that he displayed and all that he concealed.
She thought of him constantly; she thought in truth of no one else, and
nothing else. Her thoughts fluttered about his picture, shyly, greedily,
and as playfully as a kitten. He had managed to bring will power and
unity into her senses. She wanted to have him.
The rain beat against the window. Terrified at Dorothea's
thoughtfulness, Herr Carovius pressed his hands to his cheeks. "I see, I
see, you want to leave me all alone," he said in a tone that sounded
like the howling of a dog in the middle of the night. "You want to
deceive me, to surrender me to the enemy, to leave me nothing, nothing
but the privilege of sitting here and staring at my four walls. I see, I
see."
"Be still, Uncle, nothing is going to happen. It is all a huge joke,"
said Dorothea with feigned good humour and kind intentions. She walked
to the door slowly, looking back every now and then with a smile on her
face.