Andreas Doederlein always took Sunday dinner with his children. He loved
a juicy leg of pork, a salad garnished with greens and eggs, and a tart
drowned in sugar. Old Jordan, who was privileged to sit at the table,
let the individual morsels dissolve on his tongue. He had never had such
delicacies placed before him in his life. At times he would cast a
glance of utter astonishment at Daniel.
He very rarely took part in the conversation. As soon as the dishes had
been removed, he would get up and quietly go to his room.
"A very remarkable old man," said Andreas Doederlein one Sunday, as he
sat tipped back on his chair, picking his teeth.
"Ah, we have our troubles with him," said Dorothea abusively, "he is an
incorrigible pot-watcher. He comes to the kitchen ten times a day,
sticks his nose up in the air, asks what we are going to have for
dinner, and then goes out and stands in the hall, with the result that
our guests come and stumble over him."
Andreas Doederlein emitted a growl of lament.
"How are your finances, my son?" he asked, turning to Daniel with an air
of marked affability. "Would you not like to bolster up your income by
taking a position in the conservatory? You would have time for it; your
work as organist at St. AEgydius does not take up all your time. Herold
is going to be retired, you know. He is seventy-five and no longer able
to meet the requirements. All that we will have to do will be for me to
give you my backing. Three thousand marks a year, allocation to your
widow after ten years of service, extra fees--I should think you would
regard that as a most enticing offer. Or don't you?"
Dorothea ran up to her father in a spirit of unrestrained jubilation,
threw her arms around his bulky body, and kissed him on his flabby
cheek.
"No thanks to me, my child," said the Olympian; "to stand by you two is
of course my duty."
"What sort of a swollen stranger is that, anyhow?" thought Daniel to
himself. "What does he want of me? Why does he come into my house and
sit down at my table? Why is he so familiar with me? Why does he blow
his breath on me?" Daniel was silent.
"I understand, my dear son, that you would abandon your leisure hours
only with the greatest reluctance," continued Doederlein with concealed
sarcasm, "but after all, who can live precisely as he would like to
live? Who can follow his own inclinations entirely? The everyday feature
of human existence is powerful. Icarus must fall to the earth. With your
wife anticipating a happy event, you cannot, of course, hesitate in the
face of such an offer."
Daniel cast an angry look at Dorothea.
"I will think it over," said Daniel, got up, and left the room.
"It is unpleasant for him," complained Dorothea; "he values his leisure
above everything else in the world. But I will do all in my power to
bring him around, Father. And you keep at him. He will resist and
object. I know him."
Thus it was brought to light that Daniel was no longer a mysterious and
unfathomable individual in her estimation. She had found him out; she
had divined him, in her way to be sure. He was much simpler than she had
imagined, and at times she was really a bit angry at him for not
arousing her curiosity more than he did. What she had fancied as highly
interesting, thrilling, intoxicating, had proved to be quite simple and
ordinary. The charm was gone, never to return. Her sole diversion lay in
her attempts to get complete control over him through the skilful
manipulation of her senses and her priceless youth.
Daniel felt that she was disappointed; he had been afraid of this all
along. His anxiety increased with time, for it was evident that
everything he said or did disappointed her. His anxiety caused him to be
indulgent, where he had formerly been unbending. The difference in their
ages made him patient and tractable. He feared he could not show her the
love that she in her freshness and natural, unconsumed robustness
desired. On this account he denied himself many things which he formerly
could not have got along without, and put up with, many things that
would have been intolerable to him as a younger man.
It needed only a single hour at night to make him promise to accept the
position old Herold was leaving. He, as parsimonious with words as in
the expression of feelings, succumbed to her cat-like cuddling. He
capitulated in the face of her unpitying ridicule, and surrendered all
to the prurient agility of a young body. Dark powers there are that set
up dependencies between man and woman. When they rule, things do not
work out in accordance with set calculation or inborn character. It
takes but a single hour of the night to bend the most sacred truth of
life into a lie.