Chapter 38

In the province, Dorothea Döderlein, fresh from the Bavarian capital, was a phenomenon that attracted general attention. Her conduct seemed, to be sure, a bit liberal, but then she was an artist, and her name appeared in the newspapers every now and then, so it was only natural to make allowances for her. When she gave her first concert, Adler Hall was almost completely sold out.

The musical critic of the _Herold_ was captivated by her capricious playing. He called her an extraordinary talent, and predicted a brilliant future for her. Andreas Döderlein accepted the congratulations in the spirit of a seasoned patron of the arts; Herr Carovius was in the seventh heaven of joy. He who had formerly been so captious never uttered a critical word. He had taken to worshipping the Dorothea cult, and this had made him quite indiscriminating.

At first Dorothea never suffered from want of invitations to all manner of clubs, dances, and family gatherings. She was much adored by the young men, so much so that other daughters of the city of matrimonial age could not sleep from envy. In a short while, however, the youth of more sterling character, warned while there was yet time by their mothers, sisters, cousins, and aunts, withdrew in fear.

Dorothea reaped the disapproval of her acquaintances by walking with her admirers in public, unchaperoned. Moreover she could frequently be seen in the company of officers in the Eisenbeiss pastry shop, drinking chocolate and having a good time generally. Once she had been seen in the society of a big blonde Swede from Schuckert’s factory coming out of the Music Hall. The rumour was spread that she had lived an irregular life in Munich, had gadded about the streets at night, contracted a number of bad debts, and flirted with all kinds of men.

Yet there were a few serious wooers who, duped by Andreas Döderlein’s diplomacy, fell into the habit of coming around on Sunday evenings and taking dinner with father and daughter. Dorothea, however, always managed to play off one against the other; and as they were all serious and provincial, they did not know precisely what to make of it. In order to instil patience into them, Döderlein took to delivering them lectures on the intricate complications of the artistic temperament, or he made mysterious allusions to the handsome legacy to which Dorothea would one day fall heir.

It was this very fact, however, that made him exercise caution with regard to Dorothea. Knowing her spirit of defiance, and appreciating her youthful lack of judgment, he was afraid she might make some _faux pas_ that would offend that old fool of a Carovius. He was already giving her a little spending money, and the Döderleins found this a highly advantageous arrangement.

The state of Döderlein’s own finances was hopeless. It was with the greatest difficulty that he kept up the appearance of a well-to-do man. The chief cause of his pecuniary embarrassment was his relation of long standing with a woman by whom he had had three children. To support this second family, of whose existence not a soul in his immediate surroundings knew a thing, burdened him with a care that made it hard for him to preserve his cheerful, Jove-like disposition.

He had been leading a double life for fourteen years. His regular visits to the woman he loved—she lived very quietly out in the remote suburbs of the city—had to be made without attracting attention. To conceal his connection with her from the vigilant eyes of his fellow citizens made constant dissimulation, discretion, and shrewdness a necessary part of his character. But to practise these traits year in and year out and suffer at the same time from economic pressure filled him with suppressed anger and fear.

He was afraid of Dorothea. There were moments when he would have liked to maul her; and yet he saw himself obliged to hold her in check with kind words. He could not see through her. But she was always around, always adding to his troubles with her plans, wishes, engagements and intrigues. He thought he had her under control, only to discover that she was a tyrant, lording it over him. Now she would burst out crying because of some bagatelle, now she was laughing as though nothing had ever happened. The roses her serious and moneyed admirers brought her she picked to pieces in their very presence, and threw the pieces in the waste-paper basket. Döderlein would lecture her in the kindest and most intelligent way on good morals and gentle manners, and she would listen as though she were a saint. Five minutes later she would be hanging out of the window, flirting with the barber’s boy across the street.

“I am an unfortunate father,” said Andreas Döderlein to himself, when, apart from all his other multifarious worries, he began to be sceptical about Dorothea’s artistic ability. Shortly after her success in Nuremberg, she gave a concert in Frankfort, but everything was pretty quiet. Then she toured the small towns of central Germany, and was received everywhere with the greatest enthusiasm. But what of it? How much critical acumen is to be found in such places?

One evening she was at the home of a certain Frau Feistelmann, a woman whose past had some connection with nearly every scandal of the city. While there she met an actor by the name of Edmund Hahn. Herr Hahn had soft, blonde hair and a pale, bloated face. He was rather tall and had long legs. Dorothea raved about long legs. There was a thoroughly sensual atmosphere about the man; he devoured Dorothea with his impudent eyes. His build, his bearing, his half blasé, half emphatic way of speaking made an impression on Dorothea. He sat next to her at the table, and began to rub his feet against hers. Finally he succeeded in getting his left foot on her slipper. She tried to pull her foot back, but the more she tried the harder he bore down on it. She looked at him in amazement; but he smiled cynically, and in a few minutes they were desperately intimate. After dinner they withdrew to a hidden corner, and you could hear Dorothea giggling.

They arranged to meet each other on a certain street corner in the dark. He sent her free tickets to “Maria Stuart” and “Die Räuber.” He played the rôles of Mortimer and Kosinsky; he roared till you thought the roof would fall in. He introduced Dorothea to a number of his friends, and these brought their girl friends along, and they all sat in the Nassau Cellar till break of day. Among them was a certain Samuelsky, an employé of the Reutlinger Bank. He had the manners of a man about town, drank champagne, and went mad over Dorothea. She submitted to his attention, welcomed it in fact, and accepted presents from him, though, as it seemed, not until she had received the permission from Edmund Hahn. Once he tried to kiss her: she gave him a ringing box on the ears. He wiped his cheek, and called her a siren.

She liked the expression. At times she would stand before the mirror, and whisper: “Siren.”

When Andreas Döderlein heard of what was going on, he had an attack of mad rage. “I will put you out of the house,” he exclaimed, “I will beat you until you are a helpless, despicable cripple.” But in his eyes there was again the trace of that suppressed fear that gave the lie to his seeming berserker rage.

“An artist does not need to adapt her morals to the code of the Philistine,” remarked Dorothea, with complete imperturbability. “Those are all nice people with whom I am going. Every one of them is a gentleman.”

A gentleman: that was an argument against which it was futile to enter a caveat. In her eyes that man was a gentleman who ran risks, impressed waiters and coachmen, and wore creased trousers. “No one dares come too close to me,” she said with much pride. That was the truth; no one had thus far awakened her deepest curiosity, and she had determined to put a high price on herself. Edmund Hahn was the only one who had any influence on her; and this was true of him because he was absolutely devoid of feeling, and had a type of shamelessness that completely disarmed and terrified her.

Andreas Döderlein had to let her have her way. If he had any consolation at all, it lay in the belief on his part that a real Döderlein would never voluntarily come to grief. If Dorothea was a genuine Döderlein, she would march straight to her objective, and take by storm the good and useful things of life. If she failed, it would be proof that there was a flaw somewhere in her birth. This was his logic; and having applied it, theoretically, he enshrouded himself in the clouds of his Olympus.

Dorothea gave her uncle Carovius, however, detailed accounts of how she was making her suitors, young and old, walk the war-path. They all had to do it, the actor and the banker, the candle manufacturer and the engineer. She said she was leading the whole pack of them around by the nose. Herr Carovius’s face beamed with joy when he heard her say this. He called her his little jackanapes, and said she was the fortune of his old age. To himself he said that she was a genuine Carovius destined to great deeds.

“You don’t have to get married,” he said with the urge of a zealot of old, and rubbed his hands. “Oh, of course, if a Count comes along with a few millions and a castle in the background, why, you might think it over. But just let some greasy comedian get it into his head that he is going to steal you away from me! Or let some wabbly-hipped office-boy imagine for a minute that he is going to drag you into his circle along with his other unwashed acquaintances! If this ever happens, Dorothea, give it to ’em hot and heavy! Show the wanton satyrs what kind of blood you have in you.”

“Ah, Uncle,” said Dorothea, “I know you mean well by me. You are the only one who does. But if I were only not so poor! Look at me! Look at this dress I have on! It’s a sight!” And she put her head in her uplifted arm and sobbed.

Herr Carovius pulled at his moustaches, moved his eyebrows up and down, went to his writing desk, opened his strong box, took out a hundred-mark bill, and gave it to her with turned head, as if he were afraid of the wrath of the protecting spirit of the money chest.

This was the state of affairs when Daniel met the youthful Dorothea in Herr Carovius’s home, and went away with an unforgettable, unextinguishable picture of her in his soul.

XIII

Daniel’s approaching fortieth birthday seemed like a sombre portal leading to the realm of spent ambition. “Seize what remains to be seized,” a voice within him cried. “Grass is growing on the graves.”

His senses were at war with his intellect and his heart. He had never looked on women as he was looking on them now.

One day he went out to Siegmundshof. Eberhard was not at home. Sylvia’s face showed traces of subdued sadness. She had three children, each one more beautiful than the other, but when her eyes rested on them her heart was filled with grief. Women whose married life is unhappy have dull, lifeless features; their hands are transparent and yellow.

Daniel took leave more quickly than he had wished or intended. He felt an egoistic aversion to the joyless sons of man.

He went to see Herr Carovius. The laughing one whom he sought was not at home.

Herr Carovius looked at him at times distrustfully. The face of his former foe set him to thinking. It was furrowed like a field under cultivation and burnt like a hearthstone. It was the face of a criminal, crabbed, enervated, tense, and breathed upon, it seemed, by threatening clouds. Herr Carovius was a connoisseur of faces.

In order to avoid the discomfort of fatuous conversation, Daniel played a number of old motetts for Herr Carovius. Herr Carovius was so pleased that he ran into his pantry, and got a half dozen Boxdorf apples and put them in Daniel’s pockets. He bought these apples every autumn by the peck, and cherished them as so many priceless treasures.

“At the sound of such music it would not be difficult to become a real Christian,” he said.

“There is spring in them,” said Daniel, “they are art that is as innocent as new seed in the soil. But your piano needs tuning.”

“Symbolic, symbolic, my dear friend,” cried Herr Carovius, and puffed out his cheeks. “But you come back another time, and you will find it in the pink of condition. Come frequently, please. You will reap the reward of Heaven if you do.”

Herr Carovius begging for company; it was touching. Daniel promised to bring some of the manuscripts he had been collecting along with him. When he returned a few days later, Dorothea was there; and from then on she was always there. His visits became longer and longer. When Herr Carovius noticed that Dorothea was coming to see him more frequently now, he moved heaven and earth to persuade Daniel to come more frequently. He rained reproach and abuse on him if he failed to come; if he was late, he greeted him with a sour face and put indiscreet questions to him. When he was alone of an afternoon, time stood still. He was like a drinker tantalised by seeing his accustomed portion of brandy on the table but just beyond his reach. The company of these two people, Daniel and Dorothea, had become as indispensable to his happiness as in former years the reading of the newspapers, the brethren of the Vale of Tears, the troubles of Eberhard and the funerals were indispensable if he were to feel at ease. It is the way of the small citizen: each of his customs becomes a passion.

When Daniel played the old chorals, Dorothea listened quietly, though it could not be said that she was perfect at concealing her tedium.

One time they began talking about Dorothea’s violin playing. Herr Carovius asked her to play something. She declined without the slightest display of affectation. Daniel said nothing to encourage her; he found that this modesty was becoming to her; he believed that he detected wisdom and resignation in her behaviour; he smiled at her graciously.

“Tell us a story, Daniel,” she said, “that would be better.” It eventually came out that that was what she had wanted all along.

“I am a poor raconteur,” said Daniel. “I have a thick tongue.”

She begged him, however, with stammering words and beseeching gestures. Herr Carovius tittered. Daniel took off his glasses, polished them, and looked at the young girl with squinting eyes. It seemed as if the glasses had made it difficult for him to see Dorothea distinctly, or as if he preferred to see her indistinctly. “I really don’t know what I could tell in the way of a story,” he replied, shaking his head.

“Tell us everything, anything,” cried Dorothea, seized with a veritable fit of eagerness to hear him talk. She stretched out her hands toward him: that seemed to him to be so like a child. He had never told stories to a child; he had never in truth told stories to any one. Gertrude and Eleanore had, to be sure, forced a confession or a complaint from him at times, but that was all, and all that was necessary or appropriate.

Suddenly he was drawn on by the word in which his fate would be quietly reflected; by the fiery young eye in the brilliancy of which the complex became simple, the dark bright; by the wicked old man to whom the whole world, as seen from his mire, had become a poisonous food.

And with his brittle, staccato voice he told of the countries through which he had journeyed; of the sea and the cities by the sea; of the Alps and the Alpine lakes; of cathedrals, palaces, and marvellous monasteries; of the queer people he had met, of his work and his loneliness. It was all incoherent, arid, and loveless. Though sorely tempted, he desisted from mentioning things that came close to his soul; things that moved his heart, fired his brain. When he told of the Jewess, the Swallow, he did not even finish the sentence. He made a long pause, and then shifted to the account of his visit to Eschenbach. Here he stopped again before he was through.

But Dorothea began to ask questions. It was all too general and therefore unsatisfactory. “What was there in Eschenbach? Why did you go there?” she asked boldly.

He was in error concerning the hot desire that burned in her eyes to know about Eschenbach. Her question made him feel good; he believed that he was on the scent of warm-heartedness; he thought he had found a soul that was eager to help through knowledge. He was seized with the desire of the mature man to fashion an untouched soul in harmony with the picture of his dreams. “My mother used to live there,” he replied hesitatingly, “she has died.”

“Yes—and?” breathed Dorothea. She saw that that was not all.

He felt that this uncompromising reticence was not right; he felt a sense of guilt. With still greater hesitation—and immediate repentance—he added: “A child of mine also lived there; she was eleven years old. She has disappeared; no one knows where she is.”

Dorothea folded her hands, “A child? And disappeared? Simply vanished?” she whispered excitedly.

Herr Carovius looked like a man sitting on a hot iron. “Eleven years old?” he asked, hungry for sensation, “why—that was, then—before the time ...”

“Yes, it was before the time,” said Daniel gloomily and by way of confirmation. He had betrayed himself, and was angry at himself for having done so. He became silent; it was impossible to get him to say another word.

Herr Carovius noticed how Dorothea hung on Daniel’s eyes. A tormenting suspicion arose in him. “Yesterday out on St. Joseph’s Place, I was talking with one of your admirers, the fellow who shatters the wings of the stage with his ranting,” he began with malice aforethought. “The blade had the nerve to say to me: ‘You’d better hurry up and get Dorothea Döderlein a husband, or people will talk their tongues loose in their throats.’”

“That is not true,” cried Dorothea indignantly, blushing to the roots of her hair. “He didn’t say that.”

Herr Carovius laughed malevolently. “Well, if it is not true, it is pretty well put together,” he said with his usual bleat.

When Daniel left, Dorothea accompanied him to the outside door.

“It’s a pity,” murmured Daniel, “a pity!”

“Why a pity? I am free. There isn’t a soul in the world who has any claim on me.” She looked at him with the courage of a real woman.

“There are remarks that are just like grease spots,” he replied.

“Well, who can keep from the dirt these days?” she asked, almost wild with excitement.

Daniel let his eyes rest on her as though she were some material object. He said slowly and seriously: “Keep your hands and your eyes off of me, Dorothea. I will bring you no happiness.”

Her lips opened, thirsty. “I should like to take a walk with you some time,” she whispered, and her features trembled with an ecstasy which he was dupe enough to believe was meant for him; in reality Dorothea was thinking of the adventurer and the disclosure of the secret.

“Many years ago,” said Daniel, “you will scarcely recall it, I protected you here in this very same gateway from a big dog. Do you remember?”

“No! Or do I? Wait a minute! Yes, I remember, that is, quite indistinctly. You did that?” Dorothea seized his hands with gratitude.

“Fine! Then we will go walking to-morrow morning. Where? Oh, it doesn’t make much difference,” said Daniel.

“But you must tell me everything, you hear? everything.” Dorothea was as insistent as she had been in the room a short while ago; and she was more impetuous and impatient.

They agreed upon the place where they would meet.

XIV

At first they took short walks in remote parts of the city; then they took longer ones. On Mid-Summer Day they strolled out to Kraftshof and the grove of the Pegnitz shepherds. Daniel made unconscious effort to avoid the places where he had once walked with Eleanore.

There came moments when Dorothea’s exuberance made him pensive and sad; he felt the weight of his forty years; they were inclined to make him hypochondriacal. Was it the vengeance of fate that made him slow up when they came to a hill, while Dorothea ran on ahead and waited for him, laughing?

She did not see the flowers, the trees, the animals, or the clouds. But when she saw people a change came over her: she would become more active; or she would mobilise her resources; or she seemed to strike up a spiritual liaison with them. It might be only a peasant boy on an errand or a vagabond going nowhere; she would shake her hips and laugh one note higher.

“Her youth has gone to her head, like wine,” Daniel thought to himself.

Once she took a box of chocolate bon-bons along. Having had enough of them herself and seeing that Daniel did not care for them, she threw what was left away. Daniel reproached her for her wastefulness. “Why drag it along?” she asked with perfect lack of embarrassment, “when you have enough of a thing you throw it away.” She showed her white teeth, and took in one deep breath of fresh air after another.

Daniel studied her. “She is invulnerable,” he said to himself; “her power to wish is invincible, her fulness of life complete.” He felt that she bore a certain resemblance to his Eva; that she was one of those elves of light in whose cheerfulness there is occasionally a touch of the terrible. He decided then and there not to let mischievous chance have its own way: he was going to put out his hand when he felt it was advisable.

“When are you going to begin to tell me the stories?” she asked: “I must, I must know all about you,” she added with much warmth of expression. “There are days and nights when I cannot rest. Tell me! Tell me!”

That was the truth. In order to penetrate his life history, which she pictured to herself as full of passionate, checkered events, she had done everything that he had demanded of her.

Daniel refused; he was silent; he was afraid he would darken the girl’s pure mind, jeopardise her unsuspecting innocence. He was afraid to conjure up the shadows.

One day she was talking along in her easy way, and while so doing she tripped herself up. She had begun to tell him about the men she had been going with; and before she knew what she was doing, she had fallen into the tone she used when she talked with her Uncle Carovius. Becoming suddenly aware of her indiscretion, she stopped, embarrassed. Daniel’s serious questions caused her to make some confessions she would otherwise never have thought of making. She told a goodly number of rather murky and ugly stories, and it was very hard for her to act as though she were innocent or the victim of circumstances. At last, unable longer to escape from the net she had woven, she made a clean breast of her whole life, painted it all in the gaudiest colours, and then waited in breathless—but agreeable—suspense to see what effect it would have on Daniel.

Daniel was silent for a while; then he made a motion with his outstretched hand as if he were cutting something in two: “Away from them, Dorothea, or away from me!”

Dorothea bowed her head, and then looked at him timidly from head to foot. The decisiveness with which he spoke was something new to her, though it was by no means offensive. A voluptuous shudder ran through her limbs. “Yes,” she whispered girlishly, “I am going to put an end to it. I never realised what it all meant. But don’t be angry, will you? No, you won’t, will you?”

She came closer to him; her eyes were filled with tears. “Don’t be angry at me,” she said again, “poor Dorothea can’t help it. She is not responsible for it.”

“But how did you come to do it?” asked Daniel. “I can’t see how it was possible. Weren’t you disgusted to the very bottom of your soul? How could you go about under God’s free heavens with such hyenas? Why, girl, the very thought of it fills me with scepticism about everything.”