Daniel knew that Benda had returned: Philippina had read it in the
newspaper and told him about it. Dorothea, who had learned of his return
from her father, had also spoken to him about it. He had also heard
other people speak of it.
The first time he heard it he was startled. He felt he would have to
flee to his friend of former days. Then he was seized with the same fear
that had come over Benda: Is our relation to each other the same? The
thought of meeting Benda filled him with a sense of shame, to which was
added a touch of bitterness as day after day passed by and Benda never
called or wrote. "It is all over," he thought, "he has forgotten me." He
would have liked to forget too; and he could have done it, for his mind
was wandering, restless, strayed.
One evening as he crossed the square he noticed that the windows of his
house were all brilliantly lighted. He went to the kitchen, where he
found Agnes at the table seeding plums.
"Who is here again?" he asked. One could hear laughter, loud and
boisterous, in the living room.
Agnes, scarcely looking up, reeled off the names: Councillor Finkeldey,
Herr von Ginsterberg, Herr Samuelsky, Herr Hahn, a strange man whose
name she did not know, Frau Feistelmann and her sister.
Daniel remained silent for a while. Then he went up to Agnes, put his
hand under her chin, lifted her head, and murmured: "And you? And you?"
Agnes frowned, and was afraid to look into his face. Suddenly she said:
"To-day is the anniversary of mother's death." With that she looked at
him fixedly.
"So?" said Daniel, sat down on the edge of the table, and laid his head
in his hand. Some one was playing the piano in the living room. Since
Daniel had taken the grand piano up to his room, Dorothea had rented a
small one. The rhythmical movement of dancing couples could be heard
quite distinctly.
"I'd like to leave this place," said Agnes, as she threw a worm-eaten
plum in the garbage can. "In Beckschlager Street there is a seamstress
who wants to teach me to sew."
"Why don't you go?" asked Daniel. "It would be a very sensible thing to
do. But what will Philippina say about it?"
"Oh, she doesn't object, provided I spend my evenings and Sundays with
her."
The front door bell rang, and Agnes went out: there was some one to see
Daniel. He hesitated, started toward the door, shook and stepped back,
seized with trembling hand the kitchen lamp in order to make certain
that he was not mistaken, for it was dark, but there could be no
mistake. It was Benda.
They looked at each other in violent agitation. Benda was the first to
reach out his hand; then Daniel reached out his. Something seemed to
snap within him. He became dizzy, his tall, stiff body swung back and
forth. Then he fell into the arms of his friend, whom he had lived
without for seventeen years.
Benda was not prepared for such a scene; he was unable to speak. Then
Daniel tore himself loose from the embrace of his old comrade, pushed
the dishevelled hair back from his forehead, and said hastily: "Come
upstairs with me; no one will disturb us up there."
Daniel lighted the lamp in his room, and then looked around to see
whether old Jordan was at home. Jordan's room was dark. He closed the
door and took a seat opposite Benda. He was breathing heavily.
What meaning can be attached to the preliminary questions and answers
that invariably accompany such a meeting after such a long separation?
"How are you? How long are you going to stay in town? You still have the
same old habits of life? Tell me about yourself." What do such questions
mean? They mean virtually nothing. The protagonists thereby simply
remove the rubbish from the channels which have been choked up in the
course of years, and try to build new bridges carrying them over abysses
that must be crossed if the conversation is to be connected and
coherent.
Benda had grown somewhat stout. His face was brownish yellow, about the
colour of leather. The deep wrinkles around his forehead and mouth told
of the hardships he had gone through. His eye was completely changed: it
had the strong, vivacious, and yet quiet appearance of the eye of a
hunter or a peasant.
"You may well imagine that I have already told the story of my
adventures in Africa a hundred times and in the same way," said Benda.
"It has all been written down, and will shortly appear in book form,
where you can read it. It was an unbroken chain of toil and trouble.
Frequently I was as close to death as I am to this wall. I devoured
enough quinine to fill a freight car, and yet it was always the same old
story, fever to-day, to-morrow, for six months in the year. I have, I
fear, ruined my health; I am afraid my old heart will not last much
longer. The eternal vigilance I was obliged to exercise, the incessant
fight for so simple a thing as a path, or for more urgent things such as
food and drink, has told on me. I suffered terribly from the sun; also
from the rain. I had very few of the comforts of life; I was often
forced to sleep on the ground. And there was no one to talk to, no sense
of security."
"And yet," he continued, "I had my reward. When I look back on it all,
there is not an hour that I would care to have wiped from my memory. I
accomplished a great deal. I made some important discoveries, brought
back enough work to keep me busy for years to come, thirty-six boxes of
plant preparations, and this despite the fact that the entire fruit of
my first seven years of effort was burned in a tent near Nembos. But
apart from what I have actually done, there is something so real and
solemn about such a life. You live with the sky above you and savages
round about you. These savages are like children. This state of affairs
is, to be sure, being rapidly changed: Europe is breathing its pest into
the paradise. The wiles and weaknesses of these savages are in a way
touching; you feel sorry for them as you feel sorry for a dumb, harassed
beast. I had taken a boy along with me from the boundless, primeval
forests north of the Congo. He was a little bit of a fellow, almost a
dwarf. I liked him; I even loved him. And obedient! I merely had to make
a sign, and he was ready. Well, we came back to the Italian lakes, where
I wished to remain for a while for the sake of the climate before
returning to England. What happened? At the sight of the snow-covered
mountain peaks he was seized with deathly fear; he became homesick; and
in a few days he died of pneumonia."
"Why is it that there was such a long period that we never heard from
you?" asked Daniel, with a timidity and shyness that made Benda's heart
ache.
"That is a long story," said Benda. "It took me two years to get through
that fearful forest and out to a lake called Albert-Nyanza. From there I
wanted to get over to Egypt, but the country was in a state of
revolution and was occupied by the soldiers of the Mahdi. I was forced
to take the route to the Northwest, ran into a pathless wilderness, and
for five years was a captive of a tribe of the Wadai. The Niam-Niam, who
were at war with the Wadai, liberated me. I could move about with
relative freedom among them, but I could not go beyond their boundaries,
for they held me in high esteem as a medicine man and were afraid I
would bewitch them if I ever got out of their personal control. I had
lost my guides, and I had no money to hire new ones. The things I
needed, because of the delicacy of my constitution, as compared with
theirs, I secured through the chieftain from a band of Arabian
merchants. This was all very well so far as it went, but the chieftain
was careful to keep me concealed from the Arabs. I finally succeeded in
coming into personal touch with a Sheik to whom I could make myself
understood. It was high time, for I could not have stood it another
year."
Daniel was silent. It was all so strange; he could hardly adapt himself
to Benda's voice and manner. Memory failed him. The world of Benda was
all too foreign, unknown to him. What he himself felt had no weight with
his friend; it did not even have meaning. With the old sense of dim
defiance, he coaxed the ghost of disappointment into his soul; and his
soul was weighed down by the nocturnal darkness like the glass of his
window.
"Now I am enjoying my home," said Benda thoughtfully, "I am enjoying a
milder light, a more ordered civilisation. I have come to look upon
Germany as a definite figure, to love it as a composite picture. Nature,
really great, grand nature such as formerly seemed beyond the reach of
my longings, such as constituted my idea, my presentiment of perfection,
I have experienced in person; I have lived it. It enticed me, taught me,
and almost destroyed me. All human organisation, on the contrary, has
developed more and more into an idea. In hours that were as full of the
feeling of things as the heart is full of blood, I have seen the scales
of the balance move up and down with the weight of two worlds. The
loneliness, the night, the heavens at night, the forest, the desert
have shown me their true faces. The terribleness that at times proceeds
from them has no equal in any other condition of existence. I understood
for the first time the law that binds families, peoples, states
together. I have repudiated all thought of rebellion, and sworn to
co-operate, to do nothing but co-operate.
"I want to make a confession to you," he continued. "I never had the
faintest conception of the rhythm of life until I went to Africa. I had
known how long it takes to grow a tree; I was familiar with the
metamorphoses through which a plant must pass before it attains to
perfection and becomes what it is; but it had never occurred to me to
apply these laws and facts to our own lives; this had never entered my
mind. I had demanded too much; I had been in too much of a hurry.
Egoistic impatience had placed false weights and measures in my hands.
What I have learned during these seventeen years of trial and hardship
is patience. Everything moves so slowly. Humanity is still a child, and
yet we demand justice of it, expect right and righteous action from it.
Justice? Oh, there is still a long, long road to be travelled before we
reach Justice! The way is as long and arduous as that from the primeval
forest to the cultivated garden. We must exercise patience--for the
benefit of the many generations of men that are to come after us."
Daniel got up and began to walk back and forth. After a silence that was
exceedingly painful to Benda, he said: "Let's go out. Let's go to a
cafe, or take a long walk on the streets, or go wherever you would like
to go. Or if I am a burden to you, I will accompany you for a short
stretch and then remain alone. The point is, I cannot stay here any
longer; I cannot stand it here."
"A burden to me?" replied Benda reproachfully. That was the tone, the
look of years gone by. Daniel felt at once that he was personally under
no obligation to talk. He saw at once that Benda knew a great deal and
suspected the rest. He felt his heart grow lighter.
They went downstairs.