Part 14

“The spirit of nature, the spirit of God, is a total stranger to such conceptions as harmfulness and usefulness,” replied Benda in a tone of serious reflection. “He lives, and that is about all you can say. So far as I am concerned, I have not the slightest reason to defend a Döderlein in your presence.” He was silent for a moment and took a deep breath. “I cannot speak more distinctly; somehow or other I cannot quite find the right words,” he continued in a disconcerted way, “but the point is, the man has committed a crime against a woman, a crime so malicious, subtle, and naïve, that he deserves every stigma with which it is possible to brand him, and even then he would not be adequately punished.”

“You see,” exclaimed Daniel, “he is not only a miserable musician. And that is the way it always is. They are all like that. Oh, these bitter-sweet, grinning, pajama-bred, match-making, ninnying, super-smart manikins—it makes your blood curdle to look at one of them. And yet a real man has got to run the gauntlet before them his whole life long, and down through their narrow little alleys at that!”

“Rather,” said Benda with bowed head. “It is a tough, clammy poison pap. If you stir it with your finger, you will stick fast, and it will suck the very marrow out of your bones. But you are speaking for the time being without precise knowledge of all the pertinent material, as we say in science. During my study of the cells of plants and animals, I came to see that a so-called fundamental procreation was out of the question. I gave expression to this view in a circle of professional colleagues. They laughed at me. To-day it is no longer possible to oppose the theory I then advanced. One of my former friends succeeded in making certain combinations of acetic acid, crystallised by artificial means. When he made his great discovery known, one of the assembled gentlemen cried out: ‘Be careful, doctorette, or your amido atoms will get out of their cage.’ That is a sample of the base and treacherous fashion in which we are treated by the very people who we might think were our warmest friends, for they are apparently trying to reach the same goal that we are. But you! The world may reject you, and you still have what no one can take from you. I have to wait in patience until a judge hands down a decision either condemning me or redeeming me. You? Between you and me there is the same difference that exists between the seed which, sunk into the earth, shoots up whether it rains or shines, and some kind of a utensil which rusts in the store because no one buys it.”

He got up and said: “You are the more fortunate of us two, it behooves me therefore to be the more merciful.”

Daniel could make no reply that would console him.

As he went home, he thought of the fidelity and the constant but unassuming help he had received from Benda. He thought of the refined and delicate consideration of his friend. He thought especially of that extraordinary courtesy which was so marked in him, that, for example, while laughing at a good joke, Benda would stop with open mouth if some one resumed the conversation: he did not wish to lose anything another might wish to say to him.

He stopped. It seemed to him that he had neglected the opportunity to put an especially reassuring, cordial, and unforgettable force into his final handshake. He would have liked to turn back. But it is not the custom to turn back; no one in truth can do it.

III

Daniel did not wish to take the mask of Zingarella with him on his tours. To expose the fragile material to all the risks associated with a fortuitous life on the road seemed to him an act of impiety. He had consequently promised Eleanore to leave the mask with her in Jordan’s house during his absence.

Eleanore opened the door; Daniel entered. Gertrude arose from her seat at the table, and came up to meet him. Her face showed, as it always did when she saw him, unmistakable traces of resignation, willingness, submissiveness.

Daniel walked over to the table, took the newspaper wrapping from the mask, and held it up in the light of the lamp.

“How beautiful!” exclaimed Gertrude, whose senses were now delighted at the sight of any object that appealed to one’s feelings.

“Well, take it, then, Gertrude,” said Eleanore, as she leaned both elbows on the top of the table. “Keep it with you,” she continued somewhat tensely, when she noticed that Gertrude was looking at Daniel as if to say, “May I?”

“But won’t he give it to both of us?” replied Gertrude with a covetous smile.

“No, no, he simply mentioned me for courtesy’s sake,” said Eleanore, quite positively.

“Eleanore, I can scarcely tell you how I feel toward you,” said Daniel, half confused, half angry, and then stopped with conspicuous suddenness when the fiery blue of her eyes fell upon him.

“You?” she whispered in astonishment, “you?”

“Yes, you,” he replied emphatically. “Later I can tell everybody; to-day it is true in a double sense: you seem to me just like a sister.”

He had laid the mask to one side and extended his left hand to Eleanore, and then, hesitating at first, he gave Gertrude his right hand with a most decisive gesture.

Eleanore straightened up, took the mask of Zingarella, and held it up before her face. “Little Brother,” she cried out in a teasing tone. The pale, sweet stone face was wonderful to behold, as it was raised above the body that was pulsing with life.

And Gertrude—for one second she hung on Daniel’s gaze, a sigh as deep as the murmuring of the sea sounded in her bosom, and then she lay in his arms. He kissed her without saying a word. His face was gloomy, his brow wrinkled.

“Little Brother” sounded out from behind the mask. But there was no banter in the expression; it was much more like a complaint, a revelation of anguish: “Little Brother!”

IV

Daniel had left the city long ago. Eleanore chanced to meet Herr Carovius. He forced her to stop, conducted himself in such a familiar way, and talked in such a loud voice that the passersby simpered. He asked all about the young master, meaning Daniel.

He told her that “the good Eberhard”—it was his way of referring to Baron von Auffenberg—had gone to Munich for a few months, and was taking up with spiritists and theosophists.

“It is his way of having a fling,” said Herr Carovius, grinning from ear to ear. “In former times, when young noblemen wished to complete their education and have a little lark at the same time, they made the grand tour over Europe. Now-a-days they become penny-a-liners, or they go in for table-tipping. Humanity is on the decline, my charming little girl. To study the flower of the nation at close range is no longer an edifying occupation. It is rotten, as rotten, I tell you, as last winter’s apples. There is consequently no greater pleasure than to make such a young chap dance. You play, he dances; you whistle, he retrieves. It is a real treat!”

He laughed hysterically, and then had a coughing spell. He coughed so violently that the black cord suspended from his nose-glasses became tangled about a button on his great coat, and his glasses fell from his nose. In his awkwardness, intensified by his short-sightedness, he fumbled the button and the cord with his bony fingers until Eleanore came to the rescue. One move, and everything was again in order.

Herr Carovius was struck dumb with surprise. He would never have imagined that a young girl could be so natural and unembarrassed. He suspected a trap: was she making fun of him, or did she wish to do him harm? It had never occurred to him that one might voluntarily assist him when in distress.

Suddenly he became ashamed of himself; he lifted his eyes and smiled like a simpleton; he cast a glance of almost dog-like tenderness at Eleanore. And then, without saying a word, without even saying good-bye to her, he hastened across the street to hide as soon as he might in some obscure corner.

V

One afternoon in the last week of August, the Rüdiger sisters sent the boy who attended to their garden over to Eleanore with the urgent request that she call as soon as she possibly could. Feeling that some misfortune had befallen Daniel and that the sisters wished to tell her about it, Eleanore was not slow about making up her mind: exactly one quarter of an hour later she entered the Rüdigers’ front door.

A lamentable sight greeted her. Each of the three sisters was sitting in a high-backed chair, her arms hanging lifeless from her sides. The curtains were drawn; in the shaded light their faces looked like mummies. Nor was the general impression measurably brightened by the “Medea,” the “Iphigenie,” and the “Roman Woman” that hung on the wall, copies of the paintings of their idol.

Eleanore’s greeting was not returned. She did not dare leave without finding what was the matter, and the silence with which she was received was broken only when she herself decided to ask some questions.

Fräulein Jasmina took out her handkerchief and dried her eyes. Fräulein Saloma looked around somewhat like a judge at a session of court. And then she began to speak: “We three lonely women, forgotten by the world, have asked you to come to our house so that we might tell you of a crime that has been committed in our innocent home. We never heard of it until this morning. It is such an unexampled, gruesome, abominable deed that we have been sitting here ever since it was brought to our attention, wringing our hands in vain attempt to make up our minds as to what course we should pursue.”

Fräulein Jasmina and Fräulein Albertina nodded their heads in sadness and without looking up.

“Can we put the unfortunate girl out of the house?” continued Fräulein Saloma, “can we, sisters? No! Can we afford to keep her? No! What are we to do then? She is an orphan; she is all alone, abandoned by her infamous seducer, and exposed to unmitigated shame. What are we to do?”

“And you,” said Fräulein Saloma turning to Eleanore, “you who are bound to that gifted monster by ties the precise nature of which we are in no position to judge, you are to show us a way out of this labyrinth of our affliction.”

“If I only knew what you are talking about,” said Eleanore, a great burden falling from her heart as she realised that her initial fears were groundless. “By the monster you evidently mean Daniel Nothafft. What crime has he committed?”

Fräulein Saloma was indignant at the flippancy of her manner. She rose to her full stature, and said with punitive lips: “He has made our maid an ordinary prostitute, and the consequences are no longer to be concealed. Do you know what we are talking about now?”

Eleanore uttered a faint “Oh!” and blushed to the roots of her hair. In her embarrassment she opened her mouth to laugh, but she came very near to crying.

Her saddened feelings slowly crept back to Daniel, and as the picture of him rose before her mind’s eye, she turned from it in disgust. But she did not wish to allow this picture to remain in her memory: it was too flabby, petty, and selfish. Before she knew what she was doing, she, as a woman, had pardoned him. Then she shuddered, opened wide her eyes, and resumed her accustomed cheerfulness. She was again in complete control of herself.

The court had in the meanwhile examined the silent woman with stern scrutiny: “Where is Daniel Nothafft at present?” asked Fräulein Saloma.

“I do not know,” replied Eleanore, “he hasn’t written for over three weeks.”

“We must request you to inform him at once of the condition of the prostitute, for so long as such a person is in our house, we cannot sleep at night nor rest by day.”

“I am sorry that you take the matter so to heart,” said Eleanore, “and it is a rather disagreeable affair. But I have no right to mix myself up in it, nor have I the least desire to do so.”

The three sisters received this statement with despair; they wrung their hands. They would rather die, they said, than meet this voluptuary face to face again; they would endure all manner of martyrdom before they would have him come in. All three spoke at once; they threatened Eleanore; they implored her. Jasmina told with bated breath how Meta had come to them and confessed the whole business. Albertina swore that there was not another living soul on earth who could help them out of this shameless situation. Saloma said that there was nothing for them to do but to send the wicked creature back to the streets where she belonged.

Eleanore was silent. She had fixed her eyes on the “Medea,” and was doing some hard thinking. Finally she came to a conclusion: she asked whether she might speak to Meta. Filled at once with anxiety and hope, Saloma asked her what she wanted with Meta. She replied that she would tell them later what her purpose was. Fräulein Jasmina showed her the way to Meta’s room.

When Meta caught sight of Eleanore, her features became at once beclouded in sombre amazement.

She was sitting at the open window of her attic room knitting. She got up and looked into the face of the beautiful girl without saying a word. Eleanore was moved on seeing the tall, youthful figure, and yet it was quite impossible for her to subdue a feeling of horror.

At Eleanore’s very first words, Meta began to sob. Eleanore comforted her; she asked her where she was planning to go during her confinement.

“Why, there are institutions,” she murmured, holding her apron before her face, “I can go to one of them.”

Eleanore sat down on the side of the bed. She unrolled her plans to the girl with a delicacy and consideration just as if she were speaking to a pampered lady. She spoke with a silver-clear vivacity just as if she were discussing some hardy prank. Meta looked at her at first with the air of one oppressed; later she assumed the attitude of a grateful listener.

Pained by the ethereal and inhuman primness of her three employers, angry at the man who had abandoned her to her present fate, and fighting against the reproaches of her own conscience, Meta became as wax in Eleanore’s hands, submissive, obedient, and appreciative.

The Rüdiger sisters, all but bursting with curiosity to know what Eleanore had in mind, could draw nothing from her other than that she was going to take Meta away and that Meta was agreed.

VI

It was Eleanore’s intention to take the pregnant girl to Daniel’s mother at Eschenbach.

She knew of the dissension between Daniel and his mother. She knew that the two avoided each other’s presence; that Daniel in his defiance felt it his duty to avenge himself for the lack of love on the part of his mother. Back of the picture of the unloving and impatient son she saw that of an old woman worrying her life away in silent care.

She had often given way to a painful feeling of sympathy when she thought of the unknown mother of her friend. It seemed to her now as if she could play the rôle of an emissary of reconciliation; as if it were her duty to take the deserted woman here to the deserted woman there; as if she were called to take the mother-to-be to the mother who had just reasons for regretting that she had ever been a mother.

It seemed to her as if she must create a bond which could not even be sundered by crime, to say nothing of misunderstanding or caprice; it seemed to her that Daniel had to effect a reconciliation in the home of the Rüdigers as well as in that of his mother; and that, conscious as she was of doing what was right, she would meet with no opposition, would have no settling of accounts to fear.

She also took the practical side of the matter into careful consideration: Meta would have no trouble in making her living in Eschenbach; she could help Daniel’s mother, or she could do day work among the peasants.

When the child was born, Daniel’s mother would have a picture of young life to look at; it would alleviate her longing; it would appease her bitterness to see a child of Daniel’s own blood.

Eleanore told the people at home that she was going on an excursion with a school friend to the Ansbach country. She studied the time-table, and wrote a postcard to Meta telling her to be at the station at eight o’clock in the morning.

Jordan approved of Eleanore’s outing, though he warned her against bandits and cold drinks. Gertrude was not wholly without suspicion. She had a feeling that something was wrong, that these unspoken words referred to Daniel, for she was always thinking about him.

If she received a letter from him, which was very rare, she would let it lie on the table for a long while, imagining that it was full of the most glorious declarations of his love for her, expressed in language which she could not command. In a sort of moon-struck ecstasy she made an inner, dreamed music out of what he wrote.

When she read his letter, she was satisfied merely to see the words he had written and to feel the paper on which his hand had rested. She submitted in silence to the laws of his nature, which would not permit him to be excessive in his remarks or unusually communicative. Each of his dry reports was a tiding of glad joy to her, though her own replies were just as dry, giving not the slightest picture of the enraptured soul from which they came.

She felt that Eleanore was lying, and that the lie she was telling was somehow connected with Daniel. That is why she went up to Eleanore’s bed in the dead of night, and whispered into her ear: “Tell me, Eleanore, has anything happened to Daniel?”

But before Eleanore could reply, reassured by her sister’s astonished behaviour, and angry at herself for having suspected Eleanore of a falsehood, she hurried back to her own bed. She had come to think more and more of her sister every day.

“How she must love him,” thought Eleanore to herself, and buried her smiling face in the pillow.

VII

“Wait for me at the fountain,” said Eleanore to her companion, as she crossed the market place in Eschenbach at midday: “I’ll call for you as soon as everything has been discussed.”

The coachman pointed out the little house of the widow Nothafft.

A woman with a stern face and unusually large eyebrows asked her what she wanted as she entered the little shop, which smelled of vinegar and cheese.

Eleanore replied that she would like to talk with her for a few minutes quite undisturbed and alone.

The profound seriousness of Marian’s features, which resembled more than anything else an incurable suffering, did not disappear. She closed the shop and took Eleanore into the living room, and, without saying a word, pointed to one chair and took another herself.

Above the leather sofa hung the picture of Gottfried Nothafft. Eleanore looked at it for a long while.

“Dear mother,” she finally began, laying her hand on Marian’s knee. “I am bringing you something from Daniel.”

Marian twitched. “Good or bad?” she asked. She had not heard from Daniel for twenty-two months. “Who are you?” she asked, “what have you to do with him?”

Eleanore saw at once that she would have to be extremely cautious if she did not wish to offend the sensitive—and offended—woman by some inconsiderate remark. With all the discrimination she could command she laid her case before Daniel’s mother.

And behold—the unusual became usual, just as the natural seemed strange. Eleanore pictured Daniel’s hardships and rise to fame, boasted loyally of his talents and of the enthusiasm for him of those who believed in him, referred to his future renown, and insisted that all his guilt, including that toward his mother, be forgotten and forgiven.

Marian reviewed the past; she understood a great many things now that were not clear to her years ago; she understood Daniel better; she understood virtually everything, except this girl’s relation to him and the girl herself. If it was peculiar that this strange woman had to come to her to tell her who Daniel was and what he meant to the people, it was wholly inexplicable that she had brought some one with her who had been the sweetheart of the very man for whom she now showed unreserved affection.

Eleanore read Marian’s face and became a trifle more deliberate. It occurred to her, too, to ask herself a few questions: What am I, any way? What is the matter with me?

She could not give a satisfactory answer to these questions. His friend? He my friend? The words seemed to contain too much peace and calm. Brother? Companion? Either of these words brought up pictures of intimate association, inner relationship. Little Brother! Yes, that is what she had called out to him once from behind the mask. Well then: Little sister behind the mask?

Yes, that was what it should be: Little sister behind the mask. She had to have a hiding place for so many things of which she had only a vague presentiment and which in truth she did not care to visualise in brighter outlines. A subdued heart, a captured heart—it glows, it cools off, you lift it up, you weigh it down just as fate decrees. To be patient, not to betray anything, that was the all-important point: Little sister behind the mask—that was the idea.

Marian said: “My child, God himself has inspired you with the idea of coming to me and telling me about Daniel. I will put fresh flowers in the window as I did some time ago, and I will leave the front door open so that the swallows can fly in and build their nests. Perhaps he will think then from time to time of his mother.”

Then she asked to see Meta. Eleanore went out, and returned in a few minutes with her charge. Marian looked at the pregnant girl compassionately. Meta was ill at ease; to every question that was put to her she made an incoherent reply. She could stay with her, said Marian, but she would have to work, for there was no other way for the two to live. The girl referred to the fact that she had already worked out for four years, and that no one had ever accused her of lack of industry or willingness. Thereupon Marian told her she would have to be very quiet, that the people in the neighbourhood were very curious, and that if she ever gave them her family history she would have to leave.