Daniel asked Benda to wait on the stairs, locked the door, and took his
hat from the hook. In the living room there was a great deal of noise
punctuated with laughter. Philippina came out of her room, and snarled:
"The way they're carrying on in there! You'd think they wuz all drunk!"
"What is going on?" asked Daniel timidly, merely to have something to
say.
"They are playing blindfold," replied Philippina contemptuously, "every
one of them is an old bird, and they're playing blindfold!"
There was a sound as if a plate had been broken; a piercing scream
followed, and then silence. But the silence was of momentary duration:
that vulgar, slimy laughter soon broke out again.
Above the din of screaming voices, Daniel heard Dorothea's. He hastened
to the door and opened it.
His enraged eye fell on the table covered with pots, empty cups, and
pastry. The chairs had been pushed to one side; the new gas chandelier
with its five frosted globes was functioning at full force; there were
seven or eight persons grouped around Dorothea, laughing and looking at
something that had fallen on the floor.
Dorothea had pushed the white sash she had been wearing while playing
blindfold back on her forehead. She was the first to see Daniel; she
exclaimed: "There is my husband. Now don't get angry, Daniel; it's
nothing but that idiotic plaster mask."
Councillor Finkeldey, a white-bearded man, nodded at Daniel, or at least
at the spot where he was standing, with marked enthusiasm. It was his
way of paying homage to Dorothea: everything she said he accompanied
with an inspired nod of approval.
Daniel saw that the mask of Zingarella had been broken to pieces.
Without greeting a single person present, without even looking at a
single one of them, he stepped into the circle, knelt down, and tried to
put the broken pieces of the mask together. But there were too many
small shreds. The nose, the chin, parts of the glorious forehead, a
piece with the mouth arched in sorrow, another piece of the cheek--there
were too many; they could not be put together.
He hurled the fragments to one side, and straightened up. "Philippina!
The broom!" His command was given in a loud tone. And when Philippina
came in with the broom, he added: "Sweep the dirt up on a pile, and then
throw it in the garbage can."
Philippina swept up, while Daniel, as silent and unsocial on going as he
had been on coming, left the room.
Frau Feistelmann made an indignant face, Edward Hahn breathed through
his nose, Herr Samuelsky, a fat man with a red beard, made a
contemptuous remark, Dorothea, vexed and annoyed, stood and looked on
while the tears took their unrestrained course.
Benda had been waiting down at the front door. "She has broken my mask,"
said Daniel with a distorted smile, as he came down to his old friend,
"the mask you gave me. You remember! Strange that it should have been
broken to-day of all days, the very day you come to see me after so long
a separation."
"Possibly it can be glued together again," said Benda, trying to console
Daniel.
"I am not in favour of glueing things together," replied Daniel. His
eyes flashed green behind his glasses.