A few days later, Herr Carovius carried out the scheme he had decided upon at the time his heart became so embittered at Eleanore’s marriage.

It was the end of March. Herr Carovius had learned that the old Baron had just returned from Berlin. He went around to his house, and sent in his card. The butler came out, and told him that the Baron could receive no one, that he should state his business in writing.

Herr Carovius, however, wanted to see his debtor face to face: this was the heart of his dream. When he came back a second time and was again told that he could not see the Baron, he began to storm and bluster, and insisted that they should at least let him talk with the Baroness.

The Baroness was just then taking her music lesson. The fifteen-year-old Dorothea DÖderlein, who gave promise of developing into a remarkable virtuoso on the violin, was playing some sonatas with the Baroness.

Andreas DÖderlein had recognised her talents when she was a mere child. Since her tenth year, she had been obliged to practise six hours every day. She had had a great number of different teachers, all of whom had been brought to the point of despair by her intractability. In the presence of her father, however, she was meek: to him she bowed.

Andreas DÖderlein had recommended his daughter to the Baroness in words replete with objective recognition. The Baroness declared her willingness to play with Dorothea. Andreas DÖderlein had said to her: “Now you have a chance to rise in the world through powerful influence; don’t neglect it! The Baroness loves the emotional; be emotional. At times she will demand the demoniac; be obedient. Like all rich people, she is pampering some grief de luxe; don’t disturb her!”

Dorothea was docile.

They were playing Beethoven’s spring sonatas, when the altercation began out in the vestibule. The maid came in and whispered something to her mistress. The Baroness arose and went to the door. Dorothea laid her violin in her lap, and looked around in affected astonishment, as though she were coming out of a dream.

At a sign from the Baroness the old servant gave Herr Carovius a free path. He went in: his face was red; he made a quite ridiculous bow. His eyes drank in the velvet portiÈres, the cut glass mirrors, the crystal vases, and the bronze statuettes. In the meantime, and without fail, he had placed his right hand against his hip, giving the fine effect of right akimbo, and set one foot very elegantly a trifle more to the fore than the other: he looked like a provincial dancing-master.

He complained of the presumptuousness of the servants, and assured the Baroness that she was in complete enjoyment of his deference. He spoke of his good intentions and the pressure of circumstances. When the impatient bearing of his sole but distinguished auditor at last obliged him to come to the real purpose of his visit, the Baroness twitched; for from his flood of words there emerged, as she heard them, nothing but the name of her son.

With panting sounds she came up to Herr Carovius, and took him by the coat-sleeve. Her dim, black eyes became as round as little bullets; the supplicating expression in them was so much balm to the soul of her visitor.

Herr Carovius was enchanted; he was having the time of a scurvy life; he became impudent; he wanted to take vengeance on the mother against the son. He saw that the Baroness did not correspond to the picture he had made of a creature who belonged to the aristocracy. In his imagination she had lived as a domineering, imperious, inaccessible phenomenon: and now there stood before him an old, obese, worried woman. On this account he gave his voice a shriller tone, his face a more scurrilous expression than was his wont. Then he launched forth on a graphic narration of the unhappy plight in which he now found himself as a result of his association with Baron von Eberhard, Jr.

He claimed that it was nothing but his own good nature that had got him into this trouble. And yet, what was he to do? The Baron would have starved to death, or become morally depraved, if he had not come to his spiritual and pecuniary rescue, for the young man was sadly wanting in the powers of moral resistance. And what had he gained by all this altruism? Ingratitude, bitter ingratitude!

“He plundered me; he took my last cent, and then acted as if it were my damned duty to go through fire for his baronical excellency,” screamed Herr Carovius. “Before I came to know him I was a well-to-do man; I could enjoy myself; I could reap the higher pleasures of human existence. To-day I am ruined. My money is wasted, my house is burdened with mortgages, my peace of mind has gone plumb to the Devil. Two hundred and seventy-six thousand marks is what the young man owes me and my business friends. Yes—two hundred and seventy-six thousand marks, including interest and interest on the interest, all neatly noted down and signed up by the duly authorised parties. Am I to let him slam the door in my face because of his indebtedness to me? I think you will see yourself that that cannot be expected of me. He at least owes me a little respect for what I have done for him.”

The Baroness had listened to all this with folded hands and unfixed eyes. But the close of the story was too much for her: she threw herself on a great divan, overcome—for the time being—with worry and maternal weakness. A grin strayed across Herr Carovius’s face. He twirled his Calabrian headpiece in his hands, and let his leery eyes wander about the walls. Then it was that he caught sight of Dorothea, whom he had thus far failed to see in his intoxication of wrath and rapture.

When Herr Carovius entered, Dorothea, out of discretion rather than with serious intent, had made herself as small as possible in the most remote corner of the room. Trembling with curious excitement, she had wished to evade the eye of her uncle Carovius, for in very truth she was ashamed of him.

She regarded him as a sort of comic freak, who, though he had enough to live on, could not be said to be in the best of circumstances. When he rolled the sum the Auffenberg family owed him from his tongue, she was filled with astonishment and delight, and from then on she took a totally different view of him.

During the last few years Herr Carovius had seen very little of Dorothea. Whenever he had met her, she had passed by him in great haste. He knew that she was taking violin lessons: he had often heard her screechy fiddling on the stairs and out in the hall.

He fixed his eyes on her, and exclaimed: “Well I’m a son-of-a-gun if there isn’t DÖderlein’s daughter! How did you get here? Aha, you are going about and showing the people what you can do! I should think you and your creator would have had enough of music by this time.”

The Baroness, recalling that the young girl was present, raised her eyes and looked at Dorothea reproachfully. For the first time in her life she felt that the resources she had managed to extract from a life of neglect were about exhausted; for the first time in her life she felt a shudder at the thought of her musical stupefactions.

She asked Herr Carovius to have patience, adding that he would hear from her in a few days—as soon as she had talked the matter over with her husband. She nipped in the bud a zealous reply he was about to make, and nodded a momentary farewell to Dorothea, who put her violin in the case, took the case in her hand, curtsied, and followed her uncle out of the room.

She remained at his side; they went along the street together. Herr Carovius turned to her from time to time, and made some rancorous remark. She smiled modestly.

With that began the strange relation that existed between the two from then on.

II

It had looked for some time as though the Baron von Auffenberg had retired from the political stage. In circles in which he had formerly been held in unqualified esteem he was now regarded as a fallen hero.

His friends traced the cause of his failure to the incessant friction from which the party had suffered; to the widespread change that was taking place in the public mind; to the ever-increasing pressure from above and the never-ceasing fermentation from below; to the feverish restlessness that had come over the body politic, changing its form, its ideals, and its convictions; and to the more scrupulous and sometimes reactionary stand that was being taken on all matters of national culture.

But this could not explain the hard trace of repulsion and aversion which the Baron’s countenance had never before revealed when in the presence of men; it threw no light, or at most an inadequate light, on the stony glare, gloomy impatience, and reticence which he practised now even in those circles and under those circumstances in which he had formerly been noted for his diverting talents as a conversationalist and companion.

In his heart of hearts he had, as a matter of fact, always despised his political constituents, their speeches, their action, their enthusiasm, and their indignation. But he had never kicked over the traces, for during the course of a rather eventful life he had made the discovery that contempt and an icy disposition are invaluable adjuncts to any one who wishes to control men.

Even though he had fought at the beginning of his career with all the eloquence and buoyancy at his command for freedom and tolerance, it remained a fact that he regarded liberalism as nothing more than a newspaper term, a means of keeping men busy who were too indolent to think for themselves, and a source of obstructive annoyance to the openly hated but secretly admired Bismarck.

He had wielded a power in full consciousness of the lie he was acting, and had done it solely by gestures, calculations, and political adroitness. This will do for a while, but in time it eats into the marrow of one’s life.

In his eyes nothing was of value except the law, unwritten to be sure, but of immemorial duration, that subjects the little to the big, the weak to the strong, the immature to the experienced, the poor to the rich. In accordance with this law humanity for him was divided into two camps: those who submitted to the law, and the undesirable citizens who rebelled against the law.

And of these undesirable citizens his son Eberhard was the most undesirable.

With this stinging, painful thorn in his flesh, oppressed by the feeling of loneliness in the very midst of a noisy, fraudulent activity, and filled with an ever-increasing detestation of the superfluity and consequent effeminacy of his daily existence, he had created out of the figure of his son a picture of evil incarnate.

He visualised him in dissipation and depravity of every kind and degree; he saw him sinking lower and lower, a traitor to his family name; as if in a dream that appeases the sense of obscene horror, he saw him in league with the abandoned and proscribed, associating with thieves, street bandits, high-flying swindlers, counterfeiters, anarchists, prostitutes, and literati. He saw him in dirty dives, a fugitive from justice wandering along the highway, drunk in a gambling den, a beggar at a fair, and a prisoner at the bar.

His determination to wait until the degenerate representative of the human family had been stigmatised by all the world he finally abandoned. His impatience to find peace, to throw off the mask, to rid himself completely of all entanglements, dissimulation, and the life of luxury to which he had been accustomed became so great, that he looked forward to the day that would eventually mark his release as the day of a new birth.

But why did he hesitate? Was there still an element of doubt in his breast? Was there still slumbering, deep down in the regions of his heart that were inaccessible to bitterness and revenge, another picture of his son? Why did he hesitate from week to week, from month to month?

In the meantime he had donated great fortunes to poor houses, hospitals, foundations, and similar causes. He wanted to give away other millions, at least so much that his heirs would receive only the gleanings of what had once been a field of riches. Emilia was to be given the income from the breweries and the country estates.

To this extent he had firmly made up his mind. Now that his wife had told him of the actual condition in which Eberhard found himself, he felt justified in going ahead and carrying out his pre-determined plans. The proofs of dishonourable conduct on the part of his son could now be brought forward. The debts he had contracted, either through flippancy or downright deception, in the name of his father were sufficient to condemn him forever. And if not, then let them fight it out after he was dead and gone; let his last will and testament be a ghost, a spectre that would strike terror into their hearts and embitter such pleasure as they might otherwise derive from life.

His will had been drawn up seven years ago; all that was needed was the signature of the notary public.

But why did the Baron hesitate? Why did he pace back and forth in his room with pinched lips? Why did he ring for the butler with the idea of sending this functionary for the notary, and then suddenly change his mind and give the butler something else to do?

“DÉpÊche-toi, mon bon garÇon,” screeched the parrot.

III

In the course of three days the Baroness had five talks with her husband. Each time he rejected her petition to have the affairs of their son straightened out; and when she became insistent and seemed minded to keep up her fight, he became silent, speechless.

It was during her last attempt that the servants heard her speaking with extraordinary passion and violence. When she left the Baron’s room her whole body was quivering with emotion and excitement. She came out, and ordered the house servants to pack her trunk and her coachman to be ready to leave in a few minutes.

An hour later she was on her way to the estate at Siegmundshof, about ten miles from the baronial residence. Her maid accompanied her. But she was utterly unable to find peace there. During the day she would pace back and forth through the rooms, crying and wringing her hands; at night she would lie down, but not to sleep. On the fourth day she returned to the city, had the carriage driven to the residence of Count Urlich, and sent her coachman in to get the Countess. Emilia came down, terrified, to know what her mother wanted. The Baroness told her that she wished her to accompany her to Herr Carovius, whose address she had found in the city directory.

Herr Carovius had waited in vain for the news the Baroness had promised him. His anger got the best of him: he decided to make an example of the Auffenberg family, and, with this end in view, entered their house as the personal embodiment of punitive justice. When he was told that he could not be admitted, he began once more to start trouble; he raged and stormed like a madman. The servants came running out from all quarters; finally a policeman appeared on the scene and questioned him. The porter then dragged him from the house and out through the big gate at the entrance to the grounds, where he stood surrounded by a crowd of curious but not entirely disinterested people, bare-headed, waving his arms and striking an imaginary adversary with his fists—a picture, all told, of anger intensified to the point of insanity.

His backers at once got wind of his fruitless attempts to collect. They became uneasy, gave Herr Carovius himself a deal of trouble, and finally appointed a lawyer to take charge of the case. In the meantime Herr Carovius had learned through a spy that it had come to a complete break between the Baron and the Baroness, that the latter had left within two days with bag and baggage, and that great consternation prevailed among the servants and friends of the family.

A voluptuous light crept across Herr Carovius’s face: here was defeat and despair, weeping and gnashing of teeth; what more could he wish? He felt that he was personally the annihilator of the collective aristocracy. And if it is possible to take a fiendish delight in witnessing the destruction of what one after all despises, how much greater may this joy be when the thing destroyed is something one loves and admires!

It was while in this mood that the Baroness and her daughter came to see him. The sight of the two women left him momentarily speechless. He forgot to say good-day to them; to ask them in never once occurred to him.

The Baroness wanted to know where Eberhard was: she was determined to see him. When Herr Carovius stuttered out the astounding information to her that he was living hardly more than three hundred paces from where she was then standing, she began to tremble and leaned against the wall. She was not prepared for this: she had always imagined that he was staying at some mysterious place in some mysterious distance.

Herr Carovius at once insisted that he accompany the ladies to the Baron’s diminutive residence. But the Baroness felt that she was not capable of this: she feared it would mean her death. “Take me home with you, Emilia,” she said to her daughter, “and you go over and have a talk with Eberhard first.”

But Emilia had not seen Eberhard once during the nine years of her married life, and was even less inclined than her mother to meet him now. Nor was it possible to take the Baroness to her home. The old lady had evidently forgotten that she had told Count Urlich never to show his face in her presence again. The occasion of this inexorable request was the time she learned that the governess of his child was in a family way and that he was responsible for her disgrace.

Since the Baroness stoutly refused to return either to her town residence or to Siegmundshof, there was nothing for Emilia to do but to take her to a hotel. Herr Carovius, who had accompanied the two women on the street and had enjoyed to the full their pitiable distress, suggested that they go to the Bavarian Court. He climbed up on the seat by the coachman, told him how to get there, and looked down in regal triumph on the pedestrians.

Countess Emilia, quite at her wits’ end, sent a telegram to her Aunt Agatha. The next Wednesday Frau von Erfft with her daughter Sylvia arrived. “Clotilda acts as if she had lost her mind,” she said to Emilia after having spent an hour in the room with her sister. “I am going to see your father. I must have a long talk with Siegmund.”

The Baron received his sister-in-law with marked coolness, though he had always had a great deal of respect for her.

Frau von Erfft was quite careful to avoid any reference to the family affairs. She talked about Sylvia, remarking that she was now twenty-seven years old, and that she had rejected all her suitors, a fact which was causing her parents a measure of concern. “She simply will not be contented,” said Frau Agatha. “She is bent on securing a special mission in her marriage, and fears nothing so much as the loss of her personal liberty. That is the way our children are, dear Siegmund; and if we had brought them into the world differently, they would be different. In our day the ideal was obedience; but now children have discovered the duty they owe themselves.”

“Then they should look out for themselves,” replied the Baron gloomily. He had fully appreciated what his sister-in-law was driving at.

From the confused and incoherent remarks of her sister, Agatha had learned what had taken place between the Baron and the Baroness. She was familiar with the painful past; and when she looked into the old Baron’s eyes, she saw what was necessary. She made up her mind then and there to have Eberhard meet his mother.

She wished above everything else to quiet Clotilda and persuade her to return home. The task, owing to the weakness and instability of the Baroness, was not difficult. Sylvia remained with her aunt, and her quiet, resolute disposition had a wholesome effect upon her. In the meantime Agatha had got Eberhard’s address. After some search she found the house: Eberhard was at home.

IV

The first talk she had with him passed off without results of any kind. He evaded her courageous remarks, and failed to hear what he did not care to hear. He was stiff, polite, and annoyingly listless. Agatha, full of vexation, told her daughter of her disappointment. Sylvia said she would like to go with her mother the next time she visited Eberhard. Agatha shook her head, though she was in no way minded to abandon her purpose.

There was no change at the Baron’s house. Baroness Clotilda was in a perpetual state of nervous excitement that was anything but reassuring either to herself or those about her. The Baron was a disquieting riddle to the entire household: he never left his room; he paced up and down hours at a time, with his hands folded across his back.

Agatha called on her nephew a second, a third, a fourth time. Even though Eberhard’s Arctic impenetrability seemed made for all time, though yielding seemed to be no part of his nature, she finally succeeded in jolting him loose from his bearings. And when Sylvia accompanied her mother—Sylvia generally won her point with her mother—he shook off his armour with unexpected suddenness; you could see the struggles that were going on in his soul.

Falteringly, and in the affected and finical tone he not infrequently adopted, he told the story of his youth, commenting on the everlasting discord between his father and his mother and the disagreeable quarrels that used to take place at home. He said that just as soon as his mother would ask that something be done, his father would demand the opposite. The children soon saw that father was going his way and mother hers; they were not unaware of the fact that their parents cordially distrusted each other and even went so far as to lay traps for each other. He insisted that his mother, with all her amiability and gentleness, was obsessed with the idea of teasing, annoying, and wounding his father on that very point where she had already and so often teased, annoyed, and wounded him before; and that this lack of reason and consideration on her part, coupled with the absence of kindness and candour on his, had made the paternal home a hell, torn at the hearts of the growing children, and in time so hardened them that they suspected every friendly face they saw, and withdrew, as if so from something vile, from every hand that was reached out to them. He related further that in this loveless wilderness brother and sister had been drawn to each other, that in Emilia’s heart, and his own as well, this mutual friendship was cherished as a sacred, inviolable possession, so sacred that it impelled them in time to establish a league against all the rest of the world. How did they conduct themselves once this league had been founded? If they read a book it was in common; they kept no secrets from each other, advised each other, and shared their happiness and sorrow equally, until one fine day Emilia’s father appeared before her, and informed her that Count Urlich had asked for her hand and that he had promised that he should have it.

At this point in the story, Eberhard became silent; he bit his lips; his ashen face, that had never before reminded Agatha so much of the old Baron, betrayed an incurable grief.

Agatha was familiar with this incident, in rough outline; but as Eberhard related it, it stirred her soul to the very depths. “One must try to forget,” she said.

“Forget? No, that I cannot do; never have been able to do. Be it a matter of virtue or of vice, I cannot forget. Emilia, then still half child and only half woman, was made flexible in time. But that my mother did not do everything in her power to prevent this gruesome deed, and that it caused her to sink deeper and deeper into the coils of domestic anguish by reason of her innate and gnawing weakness—that was the bitterest experience of my entire life.”

“But she is your mother, Eberhard. Never in the history of the human family has a son had the right to condemn his mother.”

“That is news to me,” replied Eberhard coldly. “Mothers are human beings like any one else. Even mothers can commit a sin by filling their children with the poison of distrust and disgust with life. Father and mother, parents: they are a symbol, a glorious one when they hover above us and around us, worthy of respect and calling for filial veneration. But if I am bound to them only by the ties of duty, they are not symbols; they are mere phantoms, conceptions of human speech. There is no duty but the duty of love.”

Sylvia had sat in perfect silence. Unconsciously she had followed the most beautiful law of harmonious souls: to wield an influence, to have power, not through the use of words and the elaboration of reasons, but by a pure life, an unquestioned existence. Agreement and disagreement lay like a play of light and shadow on her brow.

In this way she reminded Eberhard more and more of Eleanore.

Perhaps it was the power of this memory that moved him to promise that he would go with Agatha on the following day to his mother. The sole condition he imposed was that he be assured that he would not meet his father.

Seeing that he was relentless in this request, Frau von Erfft conceded it, though she had a reassuring premonition that the events and the hour would be stronger than will and purpose.

V

On entering his mother’s boudoir, Eberhard’s eyes fell at once on the alabaster clock, the face of which was supported by three figures representing the daughters of time. In his childhood days the clock had always had a highly poetic meaning to him: it seemed to symbolise the fulfilment of his most ardent wishes.

The Baroness had been prepared for his coming by her sister. While Eberhard and Sylvia had been standing in the corner room waiting, a few of the servants had gathered at the door, where they whispered to each other timidly.

Eberhard went up to his mother and kissed her hand. The Baroness’s face was the colour of lead; her eyes were opened as wide as possible, and yet she seemed hardly conscious. Emilia stood at one side; her hands were pressed to her bosom, her fingers were twitching convulsively.

Frau Agatha endeavoured to relieve the situation of its solemnity and unnaturalness by making a few humorous remarks about Eberhard’s hiding place on the hill by the Castle. Baroness Clotilda looked at her son in anxious and uneasy suspense: “I scarcely recognise him,” she said with a hoarse voice, “he has changed so.”

“You have changed, too, Mother,” said Eberhard, as his chin sought refuge between the lapels of his coat. He was as stiff as a poker. Agatha looked at him full of vexation and annoyance. He acted as though he were being bored by the meeting.

But it was only a mask. As he looked at the old, indistinct, tired, bullied face, he became conscious of his mistake: he felt that he was wrong in saying that “Mothers are also human beings.” He saw at once that amends had to be made, that action was necessary; he felt that his next step would lead to inevitable self-contempt if he neglected the moral deed of repentance.

As he struggled with himself and stared, as if paralysed, into the rebellion of his own soul, a certain pair of eyes had forced their way behind the seeming apathy. A sudden blush came to Sylvia’s cheeks: she went up to her cousin, and took him by the hand. He quivered; he saw at once that she had divined what was going on in his soul, and now she was determined to bring his fight to a close, a final, definite close. She took him out of the room; he followed her; she led him through the dining room, the reception room, the smoking room, the library, and on to his father’s room. Agatha, Emilia, and the Baroness looked at each other in amazement. They went to the door of the room, and listened in breathless suspense.

Sylvia opened the door rather boldly. The old Baron was sitting on the leather chair before the stove. His legs were wrapped in a blanket; the expression on his face was of stony coldness.

Hardly had he noticed the two when he sprang to his feet as if the lightning had struck close by him. He shook; he faltered; he groped about for a physical support; and from his throat there came a stifled gurgle. That was all.

Eberhard walked over to him, and reached out his hand.

For a moment it seemed as if the old man would collapse. A last flash of hatred and revenge shot from his blue eyes; then he too reached out his hand. His arm trembled; thick knots of quivering muscles formed on his cheeks. Sylvia had gently closed the door and vanished.

Anxious minutes passed by and nothing happened, except that each held the hand of the other and each looked into the eyes of the other. The silence was broken only by the crackling of the fire in the stove.

“Just at the right time,” murmured the old Baron, without looking up and as if lost in meditation, “just at the right time.”

Eberhard made no reply. He stood as still, as motionless, as silent, and with his heels as close together as if he were a young officer facing his superior in command.

After a while he wheeled about and slowly left the room.

Sylvia was waiting in the library. In the twilight it was possible to see only the vague outline of her body.

Eberhard took hold of her and whispered: “I really believe that I no longer have a father.”

VI

That same night the old Baron had left. He got up in the middle of the night; at four o’clock his valet accompanied him to the station.

The next morning two letters were found lying on his writing desk: one was addressed to Eberhard, the other to the Baroness. The latter contained nothing more than a few words of farewell. The former was more detailed. It expressed the Baron’s satisfaction at the fact that Eberhard, whom he welcomed as the head of the house, had returned, and plainly indicated that all the necessary legal steps would be taken in a very short while to give him complete authority as his heir and successor. The letter closed with this surprising sentence: “So far as I am personally concerned, I am planning to enter the Catholic Church, in order to spend the remainder of my misapplied life at Viterbo in the Dominican Convent of Della Guercia.”

There was no explanation, no unusual display of feeling, no confession, nothing but the naked fact.

The Baroness was neither surprised nor shocked. She fell into a mute, melancholy brooding, and then said: “He never was happy, never in his whole life. I never heard him laugh a really whole-souled laugh; and living with him has made me forget how to laugh myself. His heart has been from time immemorial a sort of convent, an abode of darkness, a place of sternness. He has found his way home at last, and is probably tired from the long journey on the way to his soul.”

“Nonsense, Clotilda!” cried Frau von Erfft. “What you say about his laughing may be true, and a man who cannot laugh is half animal. But do you mean to tell me that an intelligent man must resort to such means to find peace with himself and his God? A man who is under obligations to set an example for others? Is there not enough darkness in men’s heads already? Is it necessary to put out the torches of those who stand guard? My sense of pardon is not so elaborate. I prefer to be a child of the world and associate with those who are regarded as heathens, and who have given us works of light and illumination.”

At these words Eberhard entered. As she looked into his face, Frau von Erfft thought: “There is another who can’t laugh.”

The Baron’s change of religious views caused the greatest excitement throughout the entire country. The liberal newspapers published fulminatory articles; flaming protests were made in the clubs against the surreptitious propaganda of Rome. The ultramontane party leaders rejoiced and made capital out of the marvellous return of such a sceptic to the bosom of the Church which alone can save the souls of men: they used the case as a bait for fresh recruits and as a means to fill the old regulars with greater fire and enthusiasm. Through the homes blew a breath of a tyrannical priesthood and spiritual gagging.

Eberhard adapted himself to his changed condition quickly and with but little apparent effort: the chaos of opinions left him virtually unmoved. To become the master of so much and so many people, and to do it so suddenly, necessitated dignity, a clear eye, and a firm hand. His being was in no danger from an excess of zeal or up-start conceit, suffer though he might from too great seriousness and his preference for a place in the shadow. Strangely enough, the abundance of his responsibilities made him more cheerful. And where he was unable to take his part in the world of outward unrest, Sylvia’s influence interceded and made it possible for him to do what was expected of him.

In May he accompanied her and her mother to Erfft. There they took long walks together every day, and talked a great deal about Eleanore. At first he spoke with noticeable reserve. But when he felt that he had gained the confidence of his auditor, and she his, he spoke quite candidly, so candidly in truth that Sylvia came to look upon his action as one of inner liberation.

When he told of Eleanore’s marriage to Daniel Nothafft, Sylvia interrupted him, and asked a number of questions concerning Daniel. “Oh, yes, he was our guest once; he is the Kapellmeister,” she said. And then she told him all about Daniel’s visit at Erfft, and did it with a smile in which there were both indulgence and re-awakened astonishment.

Her smile made the same appeal to Eberhard that Eleanore’s had. And yet, when he was in Sylvia’s company, he seemed to recognise more distinctly than ever what had drawn him with such irresistible power to Eleanore, possibly because Sylvia was of a less ardent and forceful nature. He could not exactly express it in words; he merely felt that it was the unknown realm of tones, the unknown melting of melodies, the ringing order of the music transformed into soul.

At the beginning of June, Sylvia went back to Nuremberg with Eberhard and her parents. A few days later the betrothal took place in the baronial residence.

VII

Herr Carovius had been paid. The consortium of silent backers had been dissolved.

Never in the history of finance had there been a satisfied creditor who was so unhappy as Herr Carovius. He was without a goal, and the sign posts had been destroyed. He had received his money; so far so good. His share of the profit was something over sixty thousand marks. But what was this in comparison with the great noise? What comparison was there between living in ease and the gorgeous sight of falling stars? What attraction could the world offer him after this hopeful affair, which had begun as a tragedy, and had increased in interest and suspense until one was justified in believing that all the contradictory forces in human nature were going to collide with one mighty bang, when, in reality, the whole incident flattened out into an ordinary drama of emotion, with the curtain going down on reconciliation all around?

But this was not the sole reason why Herr Carovius, up until this time a most elastic figure, one of those imperturbable bachelors for whom no hurdle was too high, suddenly felt that he was growing old. His soul was filled with unrest; he was seeing bad omens; he feared there was going to be a change in the weather.

He felt an inner hunger, and yet he somehow lacked appetite for his kind of things. “Down and out, lost and no good,” he sighed within. But those who had got rich at his expense could not possibly succeed. This much he knew.

He began to lose his hair; he became rheumatic. As soon as the thermometer began to fall he shivered; if it rained he stayed at home. He began to study medicine, all by himself. He took up the various remedies of our remote ancestors. He read the works of Paracelsus, and declared that all those who had written on medicine since Paracelsus were quacks and poison-mixers.

His ideas with regard to music became also more and more strange and bizarre. He had discovered an old Nuremberg composer by the name of Staden. His opera entitled “Seelewig”—the first of all German operas, by the way—he insisted was the very zenith of musical art, eminently superior to Mozart and Bach. He played arias and melodies from “Seelewig” to Dorothea.

“Now, when you can get that,” he exclaimed, “when you come to the point where I can see from your playing what is in it and at the bottom of it, Heaven and Hell in one stroke of the bow, then, you little jackanapes, I’m going to make you my heiress.”

That was precisely what Dorothea had been longing to hear; it confirmed her calculations and crowned her dreams. To hear these words roll from her uncle’s tongue had been her ambition; and she had spared no pains to arrive at her goal.

Herr Carovius was not spoiled. Since the days his sister had kept house for him, no woman had ever concerned herself about him in the least. But at that time he was young; and he had wheedled himself into believing that the women were merely waiting for him, that all he had to do was to beckon to them with his finger and they would come rushing up to him in battalions. But because he had dreaded the idea of making an unhappy selection, and by reason of the expense of the enterprise, he had neglected to give the necessary signal, and hence had been so generous as to leave them in complete possession of their freedom.

He never knew until now that the soft, little hand of a woman could bring out effects as if they had come from the touch of a magic wand. “What a pleasant little phiz DÖderlein’s offspring has,” he thought. And if Dorothea, who had made him believe that she was visiting him on the sly, though her father had given his consent long ago, chanced to remain away for a few days, he would become wild with rage, and go into the kitchen and chop wood merely to enjoy the sensation of destroying something.

Moreover, the music lessons Dorothea was taking at Herr Carovius’s expense gave the girl a new conception of her art, and awakened in her a measure of wholesome ambition. Satisfied as he was with her docility and her progress, Herr Carovius referred to her at times as the coming female Paganini, and pictured himself in the rÔle of a demoniacal impresario.

But the thing about Dorothea that struck him most forcibly and filled him with such astonishment was her relation to mirrors.

A mirror exercised a tremendous influence on her. If she passed by one, her face became coloured with a charming blush of desire; if she stood before one and saw her picture reflected in it, she was filled, first with sexual unrest, and then with retreating uncertainty. In the brightness of her eyes there was always a longing for the mirror. Her gait and her gestures seemed to have duties imposed on them by the mirror; it seemed to be their task to prepare surprises. Her whole body seemed to live in common with a spectral mirror sister, and to catch sight of this beloved sister was her first wish, fulfilment of which she effected as often as possible.

VIII

Dorothea had succeeded in making it clear to her father that it would be highly advantageous to her, as the nearest relative, to show Herr Carovius every conceivable favour. Andreas DÖderlein baulked at first; but he could not refuse recognition to the far-seeing penetration of his daughter.

When she told him of her appearance in the baronial residence, and mentioned the enormous sum Herr Carovius had collected with the mien of an undaunted victor, DÖderlein became serious; he stared into space and did some hard thinking. Recalling the now superannuated feud, he preserved the appearance of inapproachability, and said: “We will not debase ourselves for the sake of Mammon.”

A few days later, however, he said, quite of his own free will, sighing like a man who has gone through some great moral struggle and come out of it victorious, “Well, do as you think best, my child, but don’t let me know anything about it.”

His argument, had he expressed it in so many words, would have been something like the following: We are poor; we are living from hand to mouth. The negligible dowry Herr Carovius gave his sister has been used up. Marguerite would have been perfectly justified in putting in her claim for thirty thousand marks, but Herr Carovius settled with her for only twelve thousand, and there was no possibility of redress. For Herr Carovius had wheedled his sister into giving him a written statement that she was satisfied with the sum of twelve thousand: the remaining eighteen thousand was the price he demanded in return for her consent to have his sister, who was slavishly submissive to him, marry the man of her choice.

“I have been duped,” said Andreas DÖderlein, and bore up under his grudge with becoming dignity.

The director of the conservatory died, and Andreas DÖderlein, who, by virtue of his achievements and his personality, had the first right to the vacant position, was appointed to it. His former colleagues were stout in their contention that the appointment cost him many a bitter visit to the powers that be. DÖderlein read envy in their eyes and smiled to himself.

But it was a hard life. “Art cannot live without bread,” said DÖderlein, with a heroic glance into the future. “But oh, what works I could bring out if I only had time! Give me time, time, and,” swinging his hands cloudward, “the eagles above would greet me!”

IX

Herr Carovius and death were intimate friends. Whenever death had an errand to run, it always knocked on Herr Carovius’s door, as if to find a person who approved of its deeds and who had a just appreciation of them, for there were so many of the other kind.

But when Herr Carovius heard that Eleanore Nothafft had died, he felt that his old friend had gone a bit too far. He was touched. He was seized with griping pains in the abdominal region, and locked himself up for the period of one whole day in his court room. There he was taken down with catalepsy; his face went through a horrible transformation: it came to look as if all the wickedness, hopelessness, and despair of the man who had never become reconciled to life through love had been concentrated in it and petrified.

His forebodings had come true.

Eleanore’s funeral took place on a rainy June day. Herr Carovius, dressed in his shabby old yellow raincoat with its big pockets, was present. There were also many others present. Every face was touched with grief; every eye was filled with tears, like the earth round about. Those who had not known her had at least heard of her. They had known that she had been there in some capacity, just as one hears of some unusual phenomenon among the celestial bodies, and that she was gone; that she was no more to be seen. For one moment at least all these people were changed into deep, seeing, feeling beings; for one moment they laid aside their fruitless activities, their petty misdeeds, desires, anxieties, and vanities, and became conscious of the fact that the truth, purity, love, and loveliness of this earth had been decreased.

Herr Carovius went home and made a lime-blossom tea; such a tea had often helped him when he had not felt well.

The rain dripped down on the kitchen window sill. Herr Carovius said to himself: “That is my last funeral.”

Along in the evening Dorothea came in and after her Philippina Schimmelweis. Herr Carovius had paid her many a penny for her services as a spy, and now she wanted to hear what he had to say to this last and greatest of misfortunes. His infatuated interest in everything Eleanore did had been a source of unmitigated pleasure to her, though she had been exceedingly cautious never to let him see how she felt about it all. On the contrary, she never failed to affect a hypocritical seriousness in the face of all his questions, orders, instructions, and caustic observations. She had egged him on; she had flattered him; she had used every opportunity to fan the flames of his ridiculous hopes. Owing to this the confidence between the two had grown to considerable proportion; the man’s senile madness, born of his love for Eleanore, had even aroused Philippina’s lewd lasciviousness.

She said she would have to be going home; the child was asleep; and though she had locked the front door, you could never tell what was going to happen over there. “My God,” she said, “things take place in that house that are never heard of in any other home.”

The presence of Dorothea disturbed and annoyed her. She sat down on the kitchen bench, and looked at the young girl with poison in her eyes. Dorothea on the other hand found it painfully difficult to conceal her disgust at the mere sight of Philippina: her ugliness defied descriptive adjectives. Dorothea never took her eyes off the creature who sat there talking in a screeching voice, and who, as if her normal unattractiveness were not enough, had her head bandaged.

The fact is that Philippina had the toothache; for this reason her face was wrapped in a loud, checkered cloth, while out from underneath her hat stuck two little tassels.

She told the story of Eleanore’s death with much satisfaction to herself, and with that delight in the tragic in which she revelled by instinct. “And now,” she said, “old Jordan sits over there in his attic rooms and sobs, and Daniel goes moping about, refusing to eat any food and looking at you with eyes that would fill you with fear even if everything else was as it should be.”

This is the point to which Daniel has brought things, she showed in her gratuitous report, in which there was an attempt to chide him for his waywardness: He has put two women under the ground, has a helpless child in the house, is out of a job, is not making a cent. Now what could this kind of doings lead to? Judge RÜbsam’s wife had paid the funeral expenses. Why, you know, Daniel didn’t even know what they were talking about when the bill came in, and old Jordan, he didn’t have twenty marks to his name. She swore she wasn’t going to stand for it much longer, and if Daniel didn’t quit his piano-strumming—he wasn’t getting a cent for it—she was going to know a thing or two.

Quite contrary to his established custom, Herr Carovius failed to show the slightest interest in her gabble; at least he made no concessions to her. Nor did he fuss and fume; he gazed into space, and seemed to be thinking about many serious things all at the same time. His silence made Philippina raging mad. She jumped up and left without saying good-bye to him, slamming first the room door and then the hall door behind her.

Dorothea was standing by the piano rummaging around in some note books. Her thoughts were on what she had just been hearing.

She remembered Daniel Nothafft quite well. She knew that there was an irreconcilable feud between him and her father. She had seen him; people had pointed out the man with the angry looking eyes to her on the street. She had felt at the time as if she had already talked with him, though she could not say when or where. She had a vague idea as to what people said about him, and she knew that he was looked upon in the city as the adversary of evil himself.

Her breast was filled with an aimless longing. Her blood began to run warm, the fusty milieu in which she just then chanced to be cleared up and began to bestir itself. She took her violin and began to play a Hungarian dance, while an enlivening smile flitted across her face, and her eyes shone with the audacity of an ambitious and temperamental girl.

Herr Carovius raised his head: “Tempo!” he exclaimed, “Tempo!” and began to beat time with his hands and stamp the floor with his feet.

Dorothea smiled, shook her head, and played more and more rapidly.

“Tempo,” howled Herr Carovius. “Tempo!”

The barking of a sad dog was wafted into the room from the court below. It was CÆsar: he was on his last legs.

X

Daniel’s mother had come; she had brought little Eva along.

Marian had learned of Eleanore’s death through the newspaper. No one had thought of her; no one had written to her. She had not read it in the newspaper herself. The doctor in Eschenbach, who had subscribed to the FrÄnkischer Herold, had read it one morning, and had given her the paper with considerable hesitation, calling her attention to the death notice.

She was not present at the funeral. But she went out to the cemetery and prayed by Eleanore’s grave.

She appreciated Daniel’s loss. When she met him he was precisely as she thought he would be. She recognised her son in his great grief and mute despair: he was nearer to her then than at any other time of his life. She honoured his grief; she did not need to decrease it or divert it. She was silent, just as Daniel himself was silent. All she did was to lay her hand on his forehead occasionally. He murmured: “Mother, oh Mother!” She replied: “Now don’t! Don’t think of me!”

She said to herself: “When an Eleanore dies in the full bloom of youth, one must mourn until the soul of its own accord again grows hungry for life.”

At first Eva had tried to play with her little step-sister; but Philippina had chased her from the room. Once she turned against the enraged daughter of Jason Philip Schimmelweis, and said: “I’ll tell my father on you!”

“Yes? You’ll tell your father? Well, tell him! Who cares?” replied Philippina scornfully. “But who is your father? What is he? Where is he? In Pomerania perhaps?” Whereupon she added in a sing-song voice: “Pomerania is burnt to the ground. Fly, cockchafer, fly!”

“My father? He’s in the room there,” replied Eva surprised and offended: “I am in his house, and little Agnes is my sister.”

Philippina tore open her eyes and her mouth: “Your father—is in the room—” she stammered, “and little Agnes—is your sister?” She got up, seized Eva by the shoulders, and dragged her across the floor into the room where Daniel and Marian were sitting. With an outburst of laughter that sounded as though she were not quite in her right mind, and with an expression of impudence and rage on her face, she panted forth her indignation in the following terms: “This brat says Daniel is her father and Agnes is her sister! A scurvy chit—I’ll say!”

Marian, terrified, sprang to her feet, ran over to Eva, and began to scream: “Let her go, take your hands off that child!” Eva was pale, the tears were rolling down her cheeks, her little arms were stretched out as if in urgent need of help from an older hand. Philippina let go of her and stepped back. “Is it really true?” she whispered, “is it really true?” Marian knelt down and picked up her foster child: “Now you mind your own business, you rogue,” she said to Philippina.

“Daniel?” Philippina turned to Daniel with uplifted arms, and repeated, “Daniel?” She seemed to be challenging him to speak; and to be reproaching him for having deceived her. There was something quite uncanny about the way she said, “Daniel? Daniel?”

“You go back and mind Agnes!” said Daniel, worried as he had never been before: he felt more than ever under obligations to Philippina. And what could he do now without her? She was the sole guardian of his child. His mother could not remain in the city; she had to make her living, and that she could do only over in Eschenbach. Her business was located there; and there Eva was growing up in peace and happiness. On the other hand, he did not feel that it would be possible or advisable to take Agnes away from Philippina, even if his mother saw fit to adopt her too. Philippina was attached to the child with an ape-like affection. And more than this: Who would take care of old Jordan if Philippina were discharged? Daniel could not make his bed or get his meals.

Philippina went out. “The damned scoundrel!” she said as soon as she had left the room. She clenched her horny fists, and continued Daniel’s life history: “The brute has a bastard, he has. You wait, you little chit, and the first chance I get I’ll scratch your eyes out!”

Taking the child on her lap, Marian sat down by Daniel’s side. “Don’t cry, Eva, don’t cry; we’re going back home now in a minute.”

Daniel looked at his mother most attentively, and told her how Philippina had chanced to come into his family. He told her all about Jason Philip’s attempt to rob him of his inheritance, and how his own daughter had betrayed him; how his father had taken three thousand talers to Jason Philip; how Jason Philip had been forced to hand over a part of the money when Jordan was in trouble because of his son; and how he had waived his claims to the rest of the money.

Marian’s head sank low on her breast. “Your father was a remarkable man, Daniel,” she said after a long silence, “but he never did understand people; and the person whom he misunderstood most of all was his wife. He was like a man who is blind, but who does not want to let it be known that he is blind: he walks around, but where does he go? He stands still and has not the faintest idea where he is. And by the way, Daniel, it seems to me that you are a little bit like him. Open your eyes, Daniel, I beg you, open your eyes!”

The child in her lap had fallen asleep. Daniel looked into Eva’s face—yes, he opened his eyes—and as he saw this delicate, sweet, charming countenance so close before him, he could no longer control himself. He turned to the wall, and cried as if his heart would break: “I am a murderer!”

“No, Daniel,” said Marian gently, “or if you are, then everybody who lives is a murderer, the dead of the past being the victims.”

Daniel writhed in agony and gnashed his teeth.

“Father is in the room there,” whispered Eva in her dreams.

XI

The hardest of all for Marian was to get along with old Jordan; for he was only a shadow of his former self. He never entered Daniel’s room; if Marian wanted to see him she went upstairs, and there he sat, quiet, helpless, extinguished, a picture of utter dereliction.

He never mentioned his sorrows; it made him restless to see that Marian sympathised with him. When she did, he became quite courteous; he even tried to act the part of a man of the world. The effect of this assumed sprightliness, seen from the background of his physical impoverishment and spiritual decay, was terrifying.

Marian hoped to hear something from him concerning Daniel’s present situation. She knew, in a general way, that he was in profound distress, that he was living in most straightened circumstances, and this worried her tremendously. But she wanted to know how he stood in the world; whether people felt there was anything to him; and whether music was something from which a man could make a decent living. On this last point her distrust was as strong as ever; her fear showed no signs of weakening. It was Eleanore, and she only, that had given her a measure of confidence: it seemed that Eleanore’s disposition, her very presence, had inspired her with a vague, far-away idea of music. But now Eleanore was gone, and all her old doubts returned.

Jordan however became painfully secretive whenever she referred to Daniel. He seemed to be grieved at the mere mention of his name. He would merely look at the door, tuck his hands up his coat-sleeves, and draw his head down between his shoulders.

Once he said: “Can you explain to me, my good woman, why I am alive? Can you throw any light on such a preposterous paradox as my present existence? My son—a wretch, vanished without a trace, so far as I am concerned no longer living. My daughters, both of them, in the grave; my dear wife also. I have been a man, a husband, and a father; that is, I have been a father! My existence scorns the laws and purposes of nature. To eat, to drink, to sleep—oh, what repulsive occupations! And yet, if I do not eat, I get hungry; if I do not drink, I get thirsty; if I do not sleep, I get sick. How simple, how aimless it all is! For me the birds no longer sing, the bells no longer ring, the musicians have no more music.”

Owing to her desire to find consolation of some kind and at any price, she turned to Eberhard and Sylvia; they were now visiting Daniel almost every day. She liked them; there was so much consideration for other people in their behaviour, so much delicacy and refinement in their conversation. Sylvia was not in the least offended by Daniel’s sullen silence; she treated him with a respect and deference that made Marian feel good; for it was proof to her that in the eyes of good and noble people Daniel stood in high esteem. The Baron seemed in some mysterious way to be continually talking about Eleanore, though he never mentioned her name. There was a sadness in his eyes that reminded her of Eleanore; there was something supersensuous in its power. Marian often felt as though this strange nobleman and her son were brothers and at the same time enemies, as seen in the light of painful memories. Sylvia also seemed to have the same feeling; but she found nothing objectionable in the relation.

One day, as Marian accompanied the two to the hall door, she decided to pick up her courage; and she did. “Well, how do you think he is going to make out?” she asked; “he has no work; as a matter of fact he never speaks of work. What will that lead to?”

“We have been thinking about that,” replied Sylvia, “and I believe a way has been found to help him. He will hear about it in a short while. But he must not suspect that we have anything to do with it.” She looked at her fiancÉ; he nodded approvingly.

Eberhard and Sylvia knew perfectly well from the very beginning that there could be no thought of lending Daniel money. Gifts, large or small, merely humiliated him; they disgraced him. It was a case where eagerness to serve on the part of those who have meets with insurmountable obstacles, whether they wish to be lavish in their generosity or of seeming calculation. There was no use to appeal to delicacy; attenuating provisos would not help; small deceptions practised in the spirit of love would prove ineffectual. Riches stood face to face with poverty, and was as helpless as poverty usually is when obliged to enter the lists against riches. The case was striking, but not unique.

Having made up her mind to come to the assistance of the musician, Sylvia turned to her mother. But it was idle to count on the backing of the Baroness: Andreas DÖderlein had so poisoned her mind against Daniel that the mere mention of his name caused her brow to wrinkle, her lips to drop.

Agatha von Erfft got in touch, by letter, with some business people who were in a position to give her some practical advice. Their assistance was helpful in that it at least saved her the invaluable time she might have lost by appealing to the wrong people. One day she appeared before Eberhard and Sylvia with her plans all drawn up.

One of the most reputable music houses of Mayence had been nursing the idea for years of bringing out a pretentious collection of mediÆval church music. A great deal of material had already been assembled under the supervision of a writer on musical subjects who had recently died. But there was still much to be collected. To do this, it would be necessary to go on long journeys, and these would entail the expenditure of a good deal of money. Moreover, it was necessary to find a man who would not be afraid of the work attached to the undertaking, and on whose judgment one could rely without doubt or cavil. Owing to the fact that the expenses up to the present had far exceeded the initial calculations, and since it seemed impossible to engage the right sort of man to place in charge of the work, the publisher had become first sceptical and then positive; positive that he would invest no more money in it.

Agatha had heard of this some time ago. That the enterprise might be revived she learned from direct inquiry; indirect investigation confirmed what she had been told. But the publisher was unwilling to assume all the financial responsibility; he was looking for a patron who would be disposed to invest capital in the plan. If such a person could be found, he was willing to place Daniel Nothafft, whose name was now known to him, in the responsible position of making the collections and editing them. There would be a good deal of work connected with the undertaking: the treasures of the archives, libraries, and convents would have to be investigated; corrections would have to be made; notes would have to be written; and the entire work would have to be seen through the press. To do this would take several years. The publisher consequently insisted that whoever was placed in charge should sign a contract to remain until the work had been finished, he in turn agreeing to pay the editor a salary of three thousand marks a year.

Eberhard made careful inquiries as to the standing of the firm, and finding that it enjoyed a rating well above the average, he agreed to furnish the requisite capital.

A few days after the conversation between Sylvia and Marian, Daniel received a letter in the morning mail from Philander and Sons, requesting him to accept the position, a detailed description of which was given. In the event of his acceptance, all he had to do was to sign the enclosed contract.

He read the letter carefully and quietly from beginning to end. His face did not brighten up. He walked back and forth in the room a few times, and then went to the window and looked out. “It seems to rain every day this summer,” he said.

Marian had returned to the table. She took the letter with the enclosed contract and read both of them. Her heart beat with joy, but she was exceedingly careful not to betray her state of mind to Daniel: she was afraid of his contradictory and crotchety disposition. She hardly dared look at him, as she waited in anxious suspense to see what he would do.

Finally he came back to the table, made a wry face, stared at the letter, and then said quite laconically: “Church music? Yes, I will do it.” With that he took his pen, and scrawled his name to the contract.

“Thank God,” whispered Marian.

That afternoon they left Daniel. Eva hung on her father’s neck, quite unwilling to leave him. Without the least display of shyness, she kissed him many times, laughing as she did so. She was overflowing with a natural and whole-hearted love for him. Daniel offered no resistance. He looked serious. As his eye caught that of the child, he shuddered at the abundant fulness of her life; but he was aware at the same time of a promise, and against this he struggled with all the power there was in him.

XII

It was a sunny day in September. Eberhard, who had spent the entire August at Erfft, had returned to the city to attend to some urgent business—and also to hasten the arrangements for his coming wedding.

As the streets were filled with playing children, he sauntered along on his way up to the Castle on the hill. He wanted to look up his little house; he had not been in it for months. He had a feeling that he would enjoy the quiet up there; he longed to look back over and into scenes from the past; he wanted to pass in review the shadowy pictures of his former self; pictures he saw before him wherever he went, wherever he was. One of these was always with him; if he found himself in a certain room it was there; if he went on a long journey it was with him. He even found it on the faded pages of books he had taken to himself as companions in his loneliness.

He hesitated from time to time, stopped, and seemed quite irresolute. All of a sudden he turned around, and started back with hasty steps to Ægydius Place. Just as he was entering the hall of Daniel’s apartment, he met Daniel coming out. He greeted Eberhard and gave him his hand.

“I was just going to call for you,” said the Baron. “Won’t you come with me up to my old hermitage?”

Daniel looked out through his glasses at a swallow that was just then circling around over the square; there was something fabulous in its flight. “To tell you the truth, Baron, I have very little inclination to gossip at present.” He made the remark with as much consideration for the laws of human courtesy as lay within his power.

“There must be no gossiping,” said Eberhard. “I have a great secret, one that I can tell you without saying a word.”

Daniel went along with him.

The air in the little house was dead, stuffy. But Eberhard did not open the windows; he wished to have it as quiet as it was when they entered. Daniel took a seat on one of the chairs in the former living room of the Baron. Eberhard thought he had sat down because he was tired; he therefore took a seat opposite him. The evening sun cast a slanting ray on an old copper engraving based on a scene from pastoral life. A mouse played around in the corner.

“Well, what is your secret?” asked Daniel brusquely, after they had sat in perfect silence for some time.

Eberhard got up, and made a gesture which meant that Daniel was to follow him. They crossed the narrow hall, climbed up a pair of small steps, and then Eberhard opened a door leading into the attic room.

A stupefying, deadening odour of decayed flowers struck them in the face. Involuntarily Daniel turned to go, but the Baron pointed at the walls in absolute silence.

“What is this? What kind of a room is this?” asked Daniel, rather forcibly.

The four walls of the room were completely covered with bouquets, garlands, and wreaths of withered flowers. The leaves had fallen from most of them, and were now lying scattered about the floor. Leaves that had once been green had turned brown; the grasses and mosses were in shreds, the twigs were dry and brittle. Many of the bouquets had had ribbons attached to them; these, once red or blue, were now faded. Others had been bound with gold tinsel; this had rusted. The slanting rays of the sun fell on others, and lighted them as it had shone on the copper engraving in the room below. Through the purple rays could be seen a dancing stream of dust.

It was a flower mausoleum; a vault of bouquets, a death-house of memories. Daniel suspected what it all meant. He felt his tongue cleaving to the roof of his mouth; a chill ran over him. And when Eberhard at last began to speak, his eyes filled with hot, gushing tears.

“The flowers were all picked and bound by her hands, by Eleanore’s hands,” said Eberhard. And then, after a pause: “She prepared the bouquets for a florist, and I bought them; she had no idea who bought them.” That was all he said.

Daniel looked back into his past life, as if an invisible arm were drawing him to the pinnacle of some high mountain. He looked, and his soul was dissolved in anxiety, torture, and repentance.

What had he left? Two graves: that was all. No, he had, aside from the two graves, a broken harp, some withered flowers, and a mask of terracotta.

He looked at the dead stems and withered chalices: Eleanore’s fingers had once touched all of these. Her fingers were even then hovering over the dead buds like figures from the realm of spirits. In the dusty spider webs hung caught at present unused moments, kind words that were never spoken, consolation that was never expressed, encouragement, consideration, and happiness that were allowed to pass unclaimed and unapplied. Oh, this living and not knowing what the present contains! Oh, this being with a living life, and remaining unaware of it! This failure to avail one’s self of a wonderful day, a breathing, pulsing hour! This dragging, falling, plunging into the night of desire and delusion, this proud, vain, criminal discontent! O winged creature, winged creature, where art thou! Where can one call out to thee!

There was nothing left but two graves, a broken harp, withered flowers, and a mask! And a fair child here, a foul one there, and a third that had come into life only to die! And up above all this, up above even the tip of the mountain top, the gigantic, the inexpressible, the sea of dreams and dreamed melodies, the breath of God, the annunciation of infernal darkness, the message of eternity, the wonders of temporal existence, dance and dancing pipes, peals of thunder, and sweet weavings of sound—Music!

It was evening. The Baron closed the door. Daniel reached him his hand in silence, and then went home.