He was just about to begin, when some one knocked at the door. Eleanore entered. She whisked across the room, and took her seat on the sofa.

The piece opened with a quiet rhythmical, mournful movement, which suddenly changed to a raging presto. The melodic figure was shattered like a bouquet of flowers in a waterfall almost before it had had time to take shape and display real composure. The dissipated elements, scattered to the four corners of the earth, then returned, hesitatingly and with evident contrition, to be reunited in a single chain. It seemed that the mad whirlwind had left them richer, purer and more spiritual. They pealed forth now, one after the other, in a slow-moving decrescendo, until they constituted a solemn chorus played in moderato, melting at last into the lovely and serious main theme, which in the finale streamed away and beyond into infinity, dying out on an arpeggiated chord.

Where the piano failed to produce the full effect, Daniel helped out with his crow-like voice. It was the uncanny energy of expression that prevented his singing from having a comic effect.

Benda's eyes were so strained in the effort to listen intelligently and appreciatively that they became dazed, glazed. Had he been asked he could not have said whether the work was a success or a failure. The feature of the performance that convinced him was the man and the magnetism that radiated from the man. The work itself he could neither fathom nor evaluate. It took hold of him nevertheless because of its inseparable association with the human phenomenon.

Daniel got up, stumbled over to the sofa, buried his face in his hands, and sighed: "Do you feel it? Do you really feel it?" He then rose, lunged at the piano, seized the score, and hurled it to the floor: "Ah, it's no account; it is nothing; it is an abominable botch."

He threw himself on the sofa a second time. Eleanore, sitting perfectly motionless in the other corner, looked at him with the eyes of an astonished child.

Benda had gone to the window, and was looking out into the trees and the grey clouds of the sky. Then he turned around. "That something must be done for you and your cause is clear," he said.

Eleanore stretched out her arms toward Benda as though she wished to thank him. Her lips began to move. But when she saw Daniel she did not dare to say a word, until she suddenly exclaimed: "Heavens, there are two buttons on his vest which are hanging by a thread." She ran out of the room. In a few moments she returned with needle and thread, which she had had Meta give her, sat down at Daniel's side, and sewed the buttons on.

Benda had to laugh. But what she did had a tranquilising effect; she seemed to enable life to win the victory over the insidious pranks of apparitions.

IX

In years gone by, Benda had known the theatrical manager and impresario Doermaul. He went to Doermaul now, and took Daniel's new work along with him; for the versatile parvenu, who always had a number of irons in the fire, also published music.

A few weeks elapsed before Benda heard from Doermaul: "Incomprehensible stuff! Crazy attempt to be original! You couldn't coax a dog away from the stove with it." Such was Doermaul's opinion.

A young man with fiery red hair followed Benda to the door and spoke to him. He said his name was Wurzelmann and that he was a musician himself; that he had attended the Vienna Conservatory, where his teacher had given him a letter of recommendation to Alexander Doermaul. He also told Benda that Doermaul was planning to form an opera company that would visit the smaller cities of the provinces, and that he was to be the Kapellmeister.

He spoke in the detestable idiom of the Oriental Jew. Benda was politely cold.

The main point was still to come: "Vineta" had aroused Wurzelmann's profound admiration; he had read the score on the side: "A great talent, Doctor, a talent such as we have not had for a long, long while," said Wurzelmann.

"Yes, but what am I to say about Herr Doermaul's opinion?" asked Benda. He found it difficult to trust the man before him, and was using the judgment of the man behind him as a foil.

"Don't you know Doermaul? I thought you did. Whenever he has no authority to fear he becomes very bold. Lay the Ninth Symphony before him without Beethoven's name to it, and he will tell you at once that it is rubbish. Do you want to bet?"

"Honestly?" asked Benda, somewhat concerned.

"Give me the score, and I'll promise you to arouse the least sensitive from their lethargy with it. With a work of that kind you have got to blow the trumpet."

Benda thought it over. He had no use for trumpet-blowing, and no confidence in those who did the blowing. And yet he consented, for he did not feel justified in arbitrarily depriving Daniel of a chance.

It turned out that Wurzelmann had told the truth. A fortnight later Daniel was informed that the Orchestral Union had decided to perform his work in February. In order to provide its hearers with a more elaborate picture of his creative ability, the Union asked him for a second work. His compositions were perfect; others needed revision.

Wurzelmann boasted of having won his way to the seats of the mighty. He had the cordial approval of such professors of music as Wackerbarth and Herold. His masterpiece of diplomacy lay in the fact that he had secured Andreas Doederlein as director of the orchestra.

His store of suggestions was inexhaustible, his plans without number. He mentioned the fact that when the company was on the road they would have to have a second Kapellmeister, since he himself would have to function at times as substitute director: "Leave it all to me, dear Nothafft," he said, "Alexander Doermaul has got to dance to my tune, and my tune is this: It is Nothafft or nobody for Kapellmeister."

If he began with humility, he concluded with familiarity. Daniel hated red-headed people, particularly when they had inflamed eyes and slobbered when they spoke.

"He is an unappetising fellow, your Wurzelmann," he said to Benda, "and it is embarrassing to me to be indebted to him. He imagines he flatters me when he speaks contemptibly of himself. What he deserves is a kick or two."

Benda was silent. Touched by Wurzelmann's devoted efforts, he had called him servule, or the "little slave." It was pleasant to think that there was some one to remove the stumbling blocks from the road, so that the feet of him who had risen from obscurity might find a place to walk. But the little slave was filled with the admiration of the Jew, born in poverty and oppression, for the genius of the other race.

Benda knew this. He was uneasy at the thought of it; for other and no less disingenuous fanatics regarded Wurzelmann's behaviour merely as a racial peculiarity.

X

Summer with its hot August days had come. The two friends took frequent walks out to the suburbs, strolling through the forests of Feucht and Fischbach, or climbing the high hills about the city.

Eleanore joined them on one of these excursions. It was a joy to see her drink in the fragrance of the flowers and the fir trees or study the various cloud formations and the alternating scenes of the landscape. When she did this she was like a bird gliding along on noiseless wing in the upper regions, far removed from the grime of the earth, bathing in the undefiled air of the clouds.

She listened to the conversation of the friends with intelligent attention. A piercing glance or a wrinkle of the brow showed that she was taking sides, and accepting or rejecting in her own mind the views that were being set forth. If she was moved to express an opinion of her own, she generally hit the nail on the head.

As they were returning home, night set in. The sky was clear; the stars were shining. There were a great number of falling stars. Eleanore remarked that she really did not have as many wishes as she could express under these circumstances. The erudite Benda replied with a smile that in these August nights there were frequently so many groups of asteroids that the whole firmament seemed to be in motion, and that one could easily grow tired of so many wishes.

Eleanore wanted to know what an asteroid was. Benda explained it to her as well as he could. Then he told her all about constellations and the milky way, and explained to her that the latter consists of millions of individual stars. He also spoke of the size of the stars; and since he referred to them occasionally as suns and worlds, she became somewhat sceptical, and asked him whether there were any earths among the stars. "Earths? What do you mean by earths?" he asked. "Why, earths, just like the one we live on," she replied. Having been told that there were earths among the stars, Eleanore raised a number of rather cleverly framed questions about the trees and animals and people that might be found on these other earths. She was told that it was highly probable that they were all inhabited about as our own: "Why should this globe enjoy special privileges?" he asked. He added, however, that even if the inhabitants of the other earths did not have the same mental faculties that we have, they were at least beings endowed with reason and instinct.

"Do you mean to tell me that such people as you and Daniel and I may be living up there in those starry regions?"

"Certainly."

"And that there are countless peoples and humanities up among the stars of whom we know nothing at all?"

"Certainly."

Eleanore sat down on a milestone by the roadside, gazed out into space with trembling lips, and broke out crying. Benda took her hand, and caressed it.

"I am awfully sorry for all those peoples up there," Eleanore sobbed, looked up, smiled, and let the tears take their course. Benda would have liked to take Daniel by the arm, and shout into his ear: "Look at her now!" Daniel was looking at her, but he did not see her.

XI

One evening in October, Inspector Jordan left his house in Broad Street, buttoned his top coat more closely about him, and walked hastily through a connecting alley that was so narrow that it seemed as if some one had taken a big knife and cut the houses in two. His goal was Carolina Street. It was late, and he was hungry. Doubting whether Gertrude would have a warm supper ready for him, he went to an inn.

He had spent two full hours there trying to get a rich hops dealer to take out some insurance. The man had him explain over and over again the advantages of insurance, studied the tables backwards and forwards, and yet he was unable to come to a decision. Then the waiter brought him his dinner. There he sat, smacking his lips with the noise of human contentment, his great white napkin tied under his chin in such a fashion that the two corners of it stuck out on either side of his massive head, giving the appearance of two white ears. He had offended Jordan's social instincts: he had not thought it worth while to wait for an invitation.

Among other guests in the inn was Bonengel, the barber. He recognised Jordan and spoke to him. He took a seat in the background, picked out the ugliest and greasiest of the waitresses, and ordered a bulky portion of sausage and sauerkraut.

He told lascivious anecdotes. When the waitress brought him his food, she tittered, and said: "He is a jolly good fellow, Bonengel is."

Jordan began to eat rapidly, but soon lost his appetite, pushed his plate to one side, propped his chin on his hands, and stared at the immobile clouds of tobacco smoke before him.

He had a feeling that it was no longer possible to keep at this work day after day, year in and year out. Running from one end of the city to the other, up and down the same stairs, through the same old streets—he could not do it. Answering the same questions, making the same assertions, refuting the same objections, praising the same plan in the same words, feigning the same interest and quieting the same distrust day after day—no, he could not do it. Disturbing the same people in their domestic peace, prodding himself on to new effort every morning, listening to the same curtain lectures of that monster of monsters, the insatiate stock market, and standing up under the commands of his chief, Alfons Diruf—no, he was no longer equal to it. It was all contrary to the dignity of a man of his years.

He was ashamed of himself; and he was fearfully tired.

He thought of his past life. He recalled how he had risen from poverty, and worked up to the position of a highly respected merchant. That was when he was in Ulm. There he had married Agnes, the blond daughter of the railroad engineer.

But why had he never become rich? Other men who were distinctly inferior to him in shrewdness, diligence, and polish were now wealthy; he was poor. Three times he had been threatened with bankruptcy, and three times friends had come to his rescue. Then a partner joined him, invested some capital in the firm, and the business was once more on its feet.

But it turned out that this partner was a stranger to loyalty and quite without conscience. "Jordan is a drag on the business," he would say to his customers, "Jordan is stupid, Jordan cannot make a calculation." And the partner never rested until Jordan was paid a set sum and eased out of the firm.

He then tried his fortune here and there for eight or nine years. "Don't worry, Jordan," said Agnes, "everything will come out well." But it did not. Whatever Jordan took hold of, he took hold of at the wrong end at the wrong time with the wrong people.

He could not get on. Not only because his hand was heavy and his head too honest, but because he had allowed himself to be befooled by a chimera.

Early in life he had had a dream, and all his enterprise and industry were directed toward the fulfilment of this dream. It had been impossible: he had never been able to save up enough money. Every time he discussed his favourite wish with Agnes, and told her about the happy days when he would be able to live his own life and be his own boss, she encouraged him and tried to help him. But it seemed now that she had known all along that he had merely been dreaming, and that her magnanimity had prompted her not to jolt him out of his delusion.

It had always seemed to him that the world of dolls was a world in itself. He had taken an enchanted delight in picturing the types of faces, clothes, and hair he would design for his various dolls, big and little. Dolls of the most variegated charm peopled his fancy: there were princesses of different degrees of proximity to the throne, fisher maids and mermaids; there were shepherds and shepherdesses, Casperls and lusty imps, dolls with heads of porcelain and dolls with heads of wax, all so faithfully imitated that it would require anthropomorphic skill to detect that they were not human beings. Their hair was, of course, to be human hair. Some of them were to wear the costumes of foreign races, while others were to be dressed up like fairy figures, sprites, and gnomes. There was to be a Haroun al Raschid and an Oriental Dervish.

The last time he moved his choice fell on Nuremberg. He was attracted to Nuremberg because it was the centre of the doll industry.

About this time Agnes died, and he was left alone with the three children for whom he had to make a living. He no longer had the courage to hope for success or prosperity; even the doll factory had become a chimera. He had but one ambition: he wished to lay aside ten thousand marks for each of his three daughters, so that they would be provided for in any event after his death. The boy, he thought, could take care of himself.

Up to the present, however, he had not been able to place the half of this sum in the bank. And now, suppose he lost his position; suppose the frailties of old age prevented him from making his own living; suppose he was obliged to draw on the savings of years for his own support. How could he look his daughters in the face in the evening of his earthly life?

"The slag hid behind something in the cellar, and when his wife tried to bring him his pants, she let them fall in the flour bin." This elegant remark emanated from Bonengel the barber.

His auditors gurgled, the waitress roared.

As Jordan walked home he could hear above the wind the voice of Bonengel the barber. It sounded like the rattling of a pair of hair-clippers.

He disliked walking up the steps to his front door; they were so narrow; they creaked as though they were ready to fall down; and he was always afraid he would meet some blind people. An oculist lived on the first floor, and he had often seen sightless persons feeling their way around.

A letter was lying on his table. The cover bore the address of the General Agency of the Prudentia Insurance Co. He walked up and down a while before opening it. It was his discharge papers.

XII

Friedrich Benda became more and more dejected. He saw that as a private individual he would have to waste energy that should be going into his profession. It seemed to him that he was condemned to bury his talent in eternal obscurity.

He broke off from the most of his acquaintances; with others he quit corresponding. If friends spoke to him on the street, he turned his head. His sense of honour had been wounded; he was on the point of losing his self-respect.

Daniel was the only one who failed to notice the change that was coming over him. Probably he had accustomed himself to the belief that Benda's life was orderly and agreeable. The plebeian prosperity of the family in which he himself lived probably made him feel that that was the way his friend was living. At all events he never asked any questions, and was never once struck by the fact that Benda would sit before him for hours with his face wrapped in bitter, melancholy gloom.

Benda smiled at Daniel's naivete; for he felt that his attitude was due to naivete and nothing more. He harboured no resentment. He decided not to say a word about his condition to Daniel, then all taken up with himself and his music. It was, however, at times impossible for him to prevent his smarting and his desire to put an end to his ineffectual existence from breaking through the coating of reserve in which he had encased himself.

Late in the afternoon of a dismal day, Benda called for Daniel just as he was finishing one of his piano lessons. The two friends decided to take a walk and then dine together at Benda's.

In the hallway they met the Ruediger sisters as they were returning from their daily stroll through the garden. Benda greeted them with an antiquated politeness; Daniel just barely touched the rim of his hat. The sisters lined up as if ready for a cotillion, and returned the greetings with infinite grace. Fraeulein Jasmina let a rose fall, and when Benda picked it up for her, she pressed her hand against her scarcely noticeable breast and gave voice to her gratitude, again with infinite grace.

When they reached the street, Benda said in a tone of compassion: "They are three delicate creatures; they live their lonely lives like vestal virgins guarding a sacred fire."

Daniel smiled. "Yes, a sacred fire? Do you refer to the incident with the painter?"

"Yes, I do; and he was no ordinary painter, either, let me tell you. I heard the whole story the other day. The painter was Anselm Feuerbach."

Daniel knew nothing whatever about Anselm Feuerbach. He was impressed, however, by the name, which, by virtue of a mysterious magic, struck his ear like the chime of a noble bell. "Tell me about him," he said.

The story was as follows: Four years before his death, that is, six years ago, Anselm Feuerbach came to Nuremberg for the last time to visit his mother. He was already sick in body and soul, and was much disappointed in his alleged friends. The incessant torture resulting from lack of appreciation had told on his health. A few of the more enlightened citizens, however, recalled his fame, as it floated about in the heavy air of Germany, somewhat befogged and quite expatriated, and the Chamber of Commerce placed an order with Feuerbach for a painting to be hung in the Palace of Justice. Feuerbach accepted the order, choosing as his theme Emperor Ludwig in the act of conferring on the citizens of Nuremberg the right to free trade. When the picture was completed, there was a great deal of dissatisfaction with it. The merchants had expected something totally different: they had looked for a cheap but striking canvas after the style of Kreling, and not this dignified, classical work by Feuerbach.

Nor was this all. The hanging space was so small that several inches of the canvas had to be run into the wall, and the light was wretched. The Chamber of Commerce proceeded at once to make trouble with regard to the paying of Feuerbach's bill. An ugly quarrel arose in which Ruediger, the geometrician, who had always been an ardent champion of Feuerbach, took the artist's part. It finally reached the point where Ruediger left the city, swearing he would never return. His daughters had all three loved Feuerbach from the time he lived in their father's house.

"As a matter of fact, if there ever was an amiable artist," Benda said in conclusion, "it was Anselm Feuerbach. Would you like to see him? Come, then."

They were near the Cemetery of St. John. The gate was open, and Daniel followed Benda. They walked along a narrow path, until Benda pointed to a flat stone bearing the name of Albrecht Duerer. After this they came to Feuerbach's grave. A bronze tablet, already quite darkened with age and weather, bore Feuerbach's face in profile. Beneath it lay a laurel wreath, the withered leaves of which were fluttering in the wind.

"What a life he lived!" said Benda in a low tone. "And what a death he died! The death of a hunted dog!"

As they walked back to the city, night came on. Daniel had removed his hat, and was walking along at Benda's side looking straight ahead. Benda was as nervous as he had ever been in his life.

"A German life, and a German death," he exclaimed. "He stretched out his hand to give, and the people spat in it. He gives and gives and gives, and they take and take and take, without gratitude, yea, rather with, scorn. The only thing they study is their consanguinity table. They make the microscope and the catechism copulate; their philosophy and their police systems live in mesalliance. Good demeanour they know not; of human agreements they have never heard. They decide to do something, and they do it. That is all. There is no longer a place for me in Germany. I am leaving."

"You are going to leave? Where are you going?" asked Daniel, in faithful amazement. Benda bit his lips, and was silent.

"Do you see these big white spots here? They have neither mountains nor rivers on them. Those are places that have never been trod upon by European feet. There is where I am going." He smiled a gentle smile.

"Really? When?" asked Daniel, filled with dismay at the thought of losing his friend.

"I have not decided when, but it will be soon. I have work to do over there. I need air, room, sky, the free animal and the free plant."

Benda's mother came in. She was rather tall, walked with the difficulties of age, had sharp features and deep-set eyes.

She looked first at her son and then at Daniel. Then her eyes fell on the atlas and remained fixed upon it, filled with an expression of horror and anxiety.

Daniel did not know what to say. Benda, still smiling to himself, began to talk about other things.

XIII

At the death of her mother, Gertrude Jordan was nine years old. She had crept into the death chamber and sat by the bier for three hours. Perhaps her seclusion from the world and association with people dated from that hour. As she was leaving the death room, the clock on the wall struck, and a cock crowed in the distance.

"Why do you tick, clock?" she asked in a loud voice, "why do you crow, cock?" And again: "Who makes you tick, clock, who makes you crow, cock?"

She had grown up, and no one knew anything about her. It was even difficult for her own father to approach her; how she was constituted, mentally and spiritually, he did not know. She never associated with girls of her own age. Her dark eyes glowed with wrath when she heard the senseless, sensuous laughter of other girls.

The first time she partook of the holy communion she swooned and had to be carried out. Jordan then took her to Pommersfelden to his sister, the widow of the district physician Kupferschmied. At the end of one week she returned alone, completely broken in spirit. She had seen a calf slaughtered; the sight had made her almost insane.

From the time she was fifteen years old she had insisted on having her own bed room. When she was sixteen she demanded that the maid be discharged; she herself did all the cooking and kept house. As soon as she had finished her work, she would take her seat by the quilting frame.

Through her father, Benjamin Dorn had come into the family. Gertrude liked him because Eleanore made fun of him. He did not seem to her like a man; he reminded her rather of the languishing angels she embroidered. He brought her all his religious tracts and edifying pamphlets, but she could not grasp the language. He took her to the Methodist revivals, but the noisy gnashing of teeth at these meetings terrified her, and after a few times it was impossible to persuade her to go back. He also recommended that she read the Bible, but she could find nothing in it that brought her peace of mind. It seemed that she had a wound in her soul that would not heal. Long after she had abandoned Benjamin Dorn and his cheap sanctimoniousness, he imagined that she still loved him and looked up to him. She managed, however, to come into his presence only on the rarest occasions, and then she never spoke to him.

Divine worship in the Protestant church seemed to her like a sort of bargain day on which the people assembled to do business with Heaven instead of on work days. She missed the dignity; the sermons left her cold; the ritual made not the slightest appeal to her.

She never heard from any one at any time a single sentence that really enlightened her or remained fixed in her memory. It was the jejune insipidity of an entire age, the stale flatness of the world that she felt to the very depths of her soul. If she wished to make her heart glow, if she became unusually fearful of the empty air and the empty day, she stole secretly into the Church of Our Lady or into St. Sebaldus, where the house of God was more solemnly decorated, where there were more lights burning, where the prayers had a more mysterious sound, the priests seemed to be more affected by what they were doing, and where the worshipper could sense the awful meaning of life and death.

All external beauty, however, was repulsive to her. She hated even beautiful scenery and fair weather, regarding them as temptations to mortal man intended to lead him into some sort of folly. She loved nothing about herself, neither her face nor her voice. She was indeed frightened at the sound of her own deep voice. She did not like her hair, nor had she any use for her hands.

One winter evening she took from her hand the gold ring, an heirloom from her mother, presented to her by her father, and threw it into the creek. Then she bowed down over the ledge, and seemed to feel as if she had relieved her soul of a great burden.

Eleanore tried time and time again to come near her sister, but each time she was thrust back. Though Gertrude never conversed with people, every word that was said about Eleanore reached her ears; she felt ashamed of her sister. She could not bear the looks of Eleanore, took an intense dislike to her, and in the end was obliged to summon all her courage in order to return her greeting. It was impossible for her, however, to reproach Eleanore; for that she did not have sufficient command of language. In truth, her control of words was exceedingly limited. Everything, grief as well as injustice, she was forced to stifle within her own soul. She grieved about Eleanore, and became at the same time more and more nervous and excited. It seemed that something about her sister was tantalising her, drawing her on, worrying her, making her lose sleep.

Her restlessness became so great that she could no longer sit at the quilting frame; in fact, it was no longer possible for her to do any kind of exacting work. Something drew her out of the house, and once she was away, something forthwith drew her back home. Her heart beat violently when she was alone, and yet, if her father or brother or Eleanore came in, she could not stand their presence, and took refuge in her own room. If it was hot, she closed the windows; if it was cold, she opened them and leaned out. If it was quiet, she was filled with fear; if it was not quiet, she longed for peace. She could not say her prayers; she had none to say; her mind and soul were muted, muffled, dumb. She felt the hours following each other in regular order as something terrible; she wanted to skip over years, just as one might skip over pages of a tiresome book. And when the worst came to the worst, and she did not know what on earth to do, she ran to the Church of Our Lady, threw herself prostrate before the high altar, buried her face, and remained perfectly motionless until her soul had found greater peace.

Something made her go to Eleanore; she did not want to do it, but she could not help it. She was naturally vigilant, and she wished to ward off misfortune if possible. She was obsessed with an uncanny feeling, a gruesome curiosity. She dogged her sister's steps in secret. One time she saw from a distance that Eleanore had started off with a man who had been waiting for her. She could not move from the spot; Eleanore caught sight of her.

The next day Eleanore came to her voluntarily, and told her quite candidly of her relation to Eberhard von Auffenberg. Concerning what she knew of Eberhard's fate she said nothing; she merely indicated that he was extremely unhappy. She told her how she had met him the previous winter on the Dutzendteich at the ice carnival, how he ran after her, how glad she was to show him a little friendship, and how much he needed friendship.

Gertrude was silent for a long while. Finally she said, with a voice so deep that it seemed to have burst from being too full: "You two either must get married, or you must not see each other any more. What you are doing is a crime."

"A crime?" said Eleanore astonished, "how so?"

"Ask your conscience," was the answer, spoken with eyes riveted on the ground.

"My conscience is quite clear."

"Then you have none," said Gertrude harshly. "You lie, and you are being lied to. You are sunk in sin; there is no hope for you. That man's evil looks! His ugly thoughts! And the thoughts of the other men! They are all beyond redemption. You are spotted through and through. You don't know it, but I do."

She got up, kicked the chair from her with her heels, and stared at Eleanore with her mysterious black eyes: "Never mention this to me again," she whispered with trembling lips, "never, never!" With that she went out.

Eleanore felt something like actual loathing for her own sister. Filled with an indescribable foreboding, she detected in Gertrude the adversary that fate had marked out for her.

XIV

When the autumn days came on and it began to get cold, Daniel was a frequent visitor at Jordan's. Although he had a warm stove now of his own, he took pleasure in remembering the comfortable corner of a year ago. He had a greater affection for things and rooms than he had for human beings.

It was rare that he came in contact with Jordan, for now that he was no longer with the Prudentia, it was hard to locate him: he was doing odd jobs for a number of concerns, and this kept him more or less on the go. Benno came home after office hours, only to betake himself to his room, where he shaved and made himself as elegant-looking as possible for the social engagements of the evening. He did not like to be alone with Gertrude, so he never came until after six o'clock, when he knew that Eleanore would be at home. Realising that Eleanore was diligently pursuing the study of French and English, and that her evenings were therefore of great value to her, he begged her not to be disturbed by his visits. He said that he found nothing so agreeable as sitting still and saying nothing. After an hour or two, however, he left, murmuring an indistinct farewell as he did so.

At times he would bring a book with him and read. If he chanced to look up, he saw Eleanore bending over the writing table, her hair, bathed in a flood of golden light from the lamp, falling in fine silken threads over her temples, while her mouth was firmly closed, her lips inclined to droop at the corners, but in a lovely fashion. Then he saw Gertrude. She did not wear her hair loose; she put it up in a tight knot above her neck. Her dress was no longer the Nile green; it was made of brown cloth, and on the front was a row of glistening black buttons.

At times Eleanore would make some remark to him, and he would reply. At times the remarks between the two spun out into a verbal skirmish. Eleanore teased, and he was gruff; or he mocked, and Eleanore delivered a curtain lecture. Gertrude would sit with an expression of helpless amazement on her face, and look at the window. She purposely remained unoccupied; she purposely postponed her household duties. The thought of leaving the two alone in the room was unbearable.

What Daniel did and said, how he walked or sat or stood, how he put his hands in his pockets and smacked his lips, all this and more aroused a sense of fear and shame in her. She regarded his candour as impudent presumption; she looked upon his capriciousness as malevolent irrationality; his indifferent manners and his disposition to slander she felt certain were of a piece with the scorn of the devil.

On one occasion he dropped a caustic remark about the bigots who contend that God is a moralising censor. Having this phase of ethics under discussion, he also paid his respects to those people who look upon every worm-eaten pastor as an archangel. Gertrude got up with a jerk, and stared at him. He stood his ground; he merely shrugged his shoulders. Gertrude whispered: "Men without faith are worse than contagious diseases."

Daniel laughed. Then he became serious, and asked her what she understood by faith. He wanted to know whether she felt that faith was a matter of lip service. She replied, with bowed head, that she could not discuss sacred matters with a man who had renounced all religion. Daniel told her that her remark was slanderous. He wanted to know whether she had ever taken the pains to find out precisely how he stood in matters of religion, and if not, was this the reason she passed such final judgment on him with such suddenness and conviction. He asked her point blank whether she was quite certain that her so-called faith was better than his so-called unfaith. Not content with this, he asked where she got her authority, her courage, her feeling of security; whether she felt she had evidence to prove that she had carefully examined his soul; and whether she had at any time interviewed God.

He laughed again, whistled, and left.

Gertrude remained motionless for a while, her eyes fixed on the floor. Eleanore supported her chin on her hand, and looked at her compassionately. Gertrude began to tremble in her whole body, and, without raising her head, she stretched out her arms to Eleanore. Though quite unable to interpret this accusing gesture, Eleanore was terrified.

The next time Daniel came, he resumed his seat by the stove, and remained silent for a while. Then, without the slightest warning or apparent motivation, he began to discuss religion. And how? With the old spirit of defiance, as if from an ambuscade from which he could send out his poisoned arrows, with calculating maliciousness and cold rebellion, with the air of a man who has been defeated, who is now being pursued, and who is willing to concede more to the earthly order of things than to the divine. Thus he sat, the incarnation of blasphemy, and once more shuffled the features of his face until he looked like the sedulous ape.

Eleanore felt that he was denying both himself and God, and that with violence. She went over to him, and laid her hand on his shoulder. Gertrude, a death-like pallor playing over her face, got up, passed by her and Daniel, and did not appear again that evening. Nor did she appear the following evening. From that time on she avoided his presence.

For one remarkable second and no longer, Daniel fixed his eyes on the shape of Gertrude's legs. He became suddenly conscious of the fact that she was a woman and he was a man. During this second, one of the rarest of his life, he perceived the outer surface of her body, but without the enveloping clothes. He thought of her as a nude figure. It lasted only a second, but he pictured her to himself as a nude. Everything she had said and done fell from her like so much clothing.

He had a feeling that his eyes had been opened; that he had really seen for the first time in his life; and that what he now saw was the body of the world.

The nude picture followed him. He fought against his disquietude. Nothing like this had ever happened to him before. He conjured up the picture in order to destroy it with coolness and composure; but it would not be destroyed, nor would it vanish. One day he chanced to meet Gertrude by the beautiful fountain. He stopped, stood as if petrified, and forgot to speak to her.

XV

It was a cold, clear day in the middle of December. Eleanore wanted to go skating after dinner. She was known in the entire city for her skill on the ice. An irrepressible vivacity and sense of freedom pulsed through her body. It seemed to her lamentable that she should have to sit down in the overheated, sticky air of the office among all those clerks, and write.

She went, nevertheless, to the office, took her place among the clerks, and wrote as usual. Herr Zittel's eyes shone through the lenses of his spectacles like two poison flasks. But she did not make much progress; time dragged; it dragged even more heavily and slowly than Herr Diruf's feet, as he made his rounds through the room. Eleanore looked up. She felt as if his gloomy eyes were resting on her. Conscious of having failed to perform her duty as she might have done, she blushed.

Finally the clock struck six. The other clerks left, making much noise as they did so. Eleanore waited as usual until they had all gone, for she did not like to mix with them. Just then Benjamin Dorn came wabbling in: "The Chief would like to speak to Fraeulein Jordan," he said, and bent his long neck like a swan. Eleanore was surprised: what on earth could Herr Diruf want with her? Possibly it had to do with Benno.

Alfons Diruf was sitting at his desk as she entered. He wrote one more line, and then stared at her. There was something in his expression that drove the blood from her cheeks. Involuntarily she looked down at herself and felt her flesh creep.

"You wanted to see me," she said.

"Yes, I wanted to see you," he replied, and made a weary attempt to smile.

There was another pause. In her anxiety Eleanore looked first at one object in the room and then at another; first at the bathing nymph, then at the silk curtains, then at the Chinese lampshade.

"Well, sweetheart," said Herr Diruf, his smile gradually changing into a sort of convulsion, "we are not bad, are we? By the beard of the prophet, we are all right, aren't we? Hunh?"

Eleanore lowered her head. She thought she had misunderstood him: "You wanted to see me," she said in a loud voice.

Diruf laid his hand, palm down, on the edge of his desk. His solitaire threw off actual sparks of brilliancy. "I can crush every one of you," he said, as he shoved his hand along the edge of the desk toward Eleanore. "That boy out there, your brother, is an underhanded sharper. If I want to I can make him turn a somersault, believe me." He shoved his fat hand a little farther along, as if it were some dangerous engine and his solitaire a signal lamp. "I can make the whole pack of you dance whenever I want to. Can't I, sweetheart? Capito? Comprenez-vous?"

Eleanore looked into Alfons Diruf's smeary eyes with unspeakable amazement.

Diruf got up, walked over to her, and put his arms around her shoulders. "Well, if the boy is a sweet-toothed tom-cat who can easily be led astray, you are a purring pussy-cat," he said with a tone of terrible tenderness, and held the girl so tight in his arms that she could not possibly move. "Now be quiet, sweetheart; be calm, my little bosom; don't worry, you little devil!"

Horror, hot and cold, came over her, and filled her with unnamable dismay. Contact with the man had a more gruesome effect on her than anything she had ever even dreamed of. One jerk as though it were a matter of life and death, and she was free. White as a sheet, she nevertheless stood there before him, and smiled. It was a rare smile, something quite beyond the bounds of what is ordinarily called a smile. Alfons Diruf was no longer fat and fierce; he was like a pricked bubble; he was done for. And finding himself alone, he stood there for a while and gaped at the floor. He looked and felt hopelessly stupid.

Eleanore hastened through the streets, and suddenly discovered that she was in the Long Row. She turned around. Benda, then on the way over to call on Daniel, caught sight of her, recognised her by the light of the gas lamp, stopped as she passed by him, and looked after her not a little concerned.

When she reached home, she sank down on the sofa exhausted. To rid her mind of the memory of the past hour, she took refuge in her longing, longing for a southern country. Her longing was so intense, her desire to go south so fervent, that her face shone as if in fever. But the glass case had at last been broken.

The bell rang shortly before eight; she said to Gertrude: "If it is Daniel, send him away. I cannot see any one this evening."

"Are you ill?" asked Gertrude with characteristic sternness.

"I don't know; I simply do not want to see anybody," said Eleanore, and smiled again as she had smiled in Diruf's office.

It was Daniel, to be sure. Benda had told him that he had seen Eleanore out in front of the house; and when he learned that she had not been to call on Daniel, his anxiety increased. "There is something wrong here," he said, "you had better go see her." After they had talked the situation over for a while Benda accompanied Daniel as far as AEgydius Place, in order to make sure that he inquired after Eleanore.

Gertrude opened the iron door. "Eleanore does not want you to come in," she said, with a trace of joy in her eyes.

"Why not? What has happened?"

"She does not wish to see you," said the monosyllabic Gertrude, and gazed into the light of the hall lamp.

"Is she ill?"

"No!"

"Then she has got to tell me herself that she does not wish to see me."

"Go!" commanded Gertrude and tossed her head back.

Her gloomy eyes hung on his, and the two stood there for a moment opposite each other, like two racers who have come in at the same goal at the same time but from opposite directions. Daniel then turned around, and went down the steps in silence. Gertrude remained standing for a time, her head sinking deeper and deeper all the while on her breast. Suddenly she covered her face with her hands; a cold shudder ran through her body.

XVI

Before going to bed, Eleanore wrote a letter to Herr Zittel informing him that she was leaving the Prudentia at once.

Lying in bed, she could not sleep. She saw herself on the ice cutting bold and novel figures. The spectators, grouped about her in a wide circle, admired her skill. She saw the sea with fishing smacks and coloured sails. She saw gardens full of roses.

Her father and Benno had come home long ago. She heard the bell up in the nearby church tower strike twelve—and then one—and then two.

She heard some one walking back and forth in the house; she heard some one opening and closing a door. Then the steps died away, and all was quiet. She got up, went to the door, and listened. A deep sigh reached her ear from the next room. She opened the door just a little, without making the slightest noise, and peeped out through the crack.

Gertrude was standing by the open window; she was in her night-gown and bare feet. The moon was shining on the square in front of the house; the glitter of the snow on the roofs made it seem quite cold. The spooky illumination made the girl's face look spooky. Her loose flowing hair looked as black as ebony.

Eleanore ran into the room, and closed the window. "What on earth are you doing, Gertrude?" she exclaimed; "are you getting ready to take your life?"

Gertrude's slender body shivered in the cold; her toes were all bent in as if she were having a convulsion. "Yes," she said with marked moroseness, "that is what I would like to do."

"That's what you would like to do?" replied Eleanore, also trembling with cold. "And your father? Haven't you the slightest consideration for him? Do you want to give him more worry than he already has? What is the matter with you, you crazy girl?"

"I am a sinner, Eleanore," cried Gertrude, fell on her knees, and clasped Eleanore about the hips. "I am a sinner."

"Yes? A sinner? What sin, pray, have you committed?" asked Eleanore, and bent down over her.

"Why am I in that house there, in that prison?" cried Gertrude, and clasped her hands to her breast. "Evil has come over me, evil has taken possession of me. I have evil thoughts. Look at me, Eleanore, look at me!"

Her voice had now mounted to the pitch of a piercing shriek. Eleanore stepped back from her, terror-stricken. Gertrude fell head first on the floor. Her hair covered her bent and twitching back.

The door leading to Jordan's room opened, and he himself came in carrying a lighted candle. In default of pajamas, he had thrown a chequered shawl around his shoulders, the fringes of which were dangling about his knees. He had a white-peaked night-cap on his head.

Quite beside himself, he looked at the two girls and wanted to say something; but he was speechless. When much worried he would always smirk. It was a disagreeable habit. In Eleanore it always aroused a feeling of intense compassion. "There is nothing wrong, father," she stammered, and made an awkward gesture which indicated to him that it would be most agreeable to her if he would go away. "Gertrude has pains in her stomach; she tried to go to the medicine chest to get a few drops. Please go, father; I'll put her to bed."

"I will go to the doctor, or I will call Benno and have him go," said Jordan.

"No, father, it is not necessary. Please go away!"

He appreciated Eleanore's impatience and obediently withdrew, shielding the light of the candle with his hand; his gigantic shadow followed along behind him like some unclassified animal.

"Get up, Gertrude, get up and come with me!" said Eleanore.

Gertrude was taken back to her room. After she had been in bed for a few minutes, there was a knock at the door. It was Jordan; he asked how she felt. Eleanore told him everything was all right.

Until the moon had disappeared below the church roof, Eleanore sat on Gertrude's bed, and held her mute hand in her own. Though she had thrown a cloak about her shoulders, she was cold. Gertrude lay with open, lifeless eyes. Every movement of Eleanore's face revealed the changing moods of her soul: she was thinking over an unending series of grave thoughts. When it became quite dark, Gertrude turned her face to Eleanore, and said softly: "Please get in bed with me, Eleanore. If I see you sleeping, possibly I can sleep too."

Eleanore laid the cloak to one side, and slipped in under the covers. The two girls cuddled up to each other, and in a few minutes both were sound asleep.



VOICES FROM WITHOUT AND VOICES FROM WITHIN

I

Daniel gradually gained followers. Those whom the "little slave" won over to his cause were hardly to be called patrons: they were patriots. They were delighted at the thought that a maestro should have been born and risen to fame in soulful old Franconia. In the actual life of their protege they took but little interest.

Daniel's followers were young people.

Professor Herold was a strange man. His reputation reached far beyond the boundaries of his native province, and yet, owing to his whimsical peculiarities, he had not the slightest desire to leave home. On such sons and daughters of the natives as were diligent in their pursuit of musical studies, he poured out the whole of his sarcasm. His chief, his darling ambition was to wean them away from their fondness for worthless music and clap-trap performances of it. He did not succeed: you were not considered educated unless you could play the piano, and in the homes of these merchants education was highly regarded.

Enticed by his name, all kinds of people came from a distance to take lessons from Professor Herold. Having read the score of "Vineta," he said to two of these: "Fetch me that fellow dead or alive." And they fetched him.

The two came more frequently to Daniel, and then others, pupils of Professors Wackerbarth and Doederlein. At times he would take luncheon with them in the students' restaurant. We will call them the long-haired, or the pale-faced. Many of them looked like snake-charmers. They were almost without exception hopelessly stupid, but they all had some kind of a bee in their bonnet.

There were some young girls among them; we will call them the dreamy-eyed, or the lost-in-dreams. Daniel had no use for them whatsoever. His patience with the long-haired was equally lacking.

He told "the old man," as Professor Herold was called, of his antipathy to these students. Professor Herold snapped like a vicious dog, brushed the white bristles back over his enormous head, and said: "Well, my young original, you have made a discovery. Don't you know that music cajoles into its magic circle the very riff-raff of any community? Don't you know that music is a subterfuge for the neglect of human duty? Don't you know that the voluptuous fumes it spreads over the cities results in the general corrosion and consumption of men's hearts? Don't you know that of every five hundred so-called artists, four hundred and ninety-nine are nothing but the cripple guard of God above? Therefore he who does not come to music with the holiest fire burning in the depths of his soul has his blood in time transformed by it into glue, his mind into a heap of rubbish."

Whereat he pushed Daniel out of the door, so that he might work undisturbed on his little pictures. Of these the walls of his room were full. He painted them in his leisure hours. They were small in size, and smaller still in merit; but he was proud of them. They represented scenes from country life.

II

On New Year's Eve, Doermaul, the impresario, gave a dinner in the Little Swan, to which he invited Daniel. Doermaul was quite well disposed toward Daniel. He said he had recognised the young man's talents at the sight of his very first note. He promised to publish "Vineta" and also the work Daniel had finished in the meantime, entitled "Nuremberg Serenade." He also seemed inclined to consider favourably Daniel's appointment in his newly founded opera company.

Among those present at the dinner were Professors Herold and Wackerbarth, Wurzelmann, a few of the long-haired and a few of the lost-in-dreams. Andreas Doederlein had promised to come in later. He appeared, as a matter of fact, five minutes before midnight, and stood in the wide-opened door as ceremonious as the New Year itself.

He went up to Daniel, and extended him his right hand.

"Look who's here! Our Benjamin and our John, not to mention our Daniel," he said, glancing at the last of the trio. "Congratulations, my young star! What do the annals from Andreas Doederlein's nose for news have to report? Back in Bayreuth, when we used to draw our wine by the flask, he merely had to sniffle around a bit to know just how things were. Isn't that true, Benjamin?"

Nobody denied it. Benjamin let right yield to mercy. The mighty man removed his storm-cape from his shoulders as though it were ermine he were doffing before condescending to associate with ordinary mortals.

Professor Wackerbarth had a wife who beat him and gave him nothing to eat: he regarded this as a rare opportunity to eat his fill and have a good time generally. But it was a poor sort of a good time.

One of the long-haired sang the champagne song, and Wurzelmann made a witty speech. Doederlein suggested that now was the time to let the mice dance and the fleas hop. When one of the lost-in-dreams sang David's March, which according to the rules of Bayreuth could not be classed as real music, Doederlein exclaimed: "Give me Lethe, my fair one." By "Lethe" he meant punch.

Daniel drank Lethe too. He embraced old Herold, shook hands with Andreas Doederlein, and tried to waltz with Wurzelmann. He was not drunk; he was merely happy.

Then it became too close for him in the room. He took his hat, put on his overcoat, and hurried out.

The air was warm, mild. A south wind was blowing. Heaven above, heaven below, the houses were standing on clouds. One breath made him thirsty for the next one. There was a bay-window; it was so beautiful that he felt like kneeling before it. There was a fountain; it was so snug and exotic that it seemed like a poem. There were the arches of the bridge; in them was the dim reflection of the water. There were two towers; they were as delicate as a spider's web.

He rejoiced and exclaimed: "Oh world, art thou real? Art thou my world, and am I living in thee? My world, my year, my time, and I in it all, I myself!"

III

He stood on AEgydius Place, and looked up at the windows in Jordan's house. They were all dark.

He wanted to call out, but the name that was on his lips filled him with anxiety. The passionate flutter of his heart almost tore his breast asunder.

He had to do something; he had to speak; he had to ask questions and hear a human voice. Consequently, he hurried out to the Fuell, stood under Benda's window, and called Benda's name. The clocks struck three.

The blinds were soon drawn to one side, and Benda's stoutish figure appeared at the open window. "Daniel? Is it you? What's up?"

"Nothing. I merely wanted to bring you New Year's greetings."

"Do you think you are bringing me something good? Go home and go to bed."

"Ah, let me come in a little while, Friedrich. Let's chat for a moment or two about happiness!"

"Be reasonable! We might frighten happiness away by our talk."

"Philistine! Well, give me your blessing at least."

"You have it. Now go, night owl, and let the people sleep."

Another window opened on the ground floor. Herr Carovius's desolate nocturnal physiognomy appeared at the window, looked up, looked down on the disturber of the peace on the street, and with one mighty grim, grinning sound on his lips, his revengeful fist swinging in the meanwhile, the indignant man closed the window with a bang.

Something impelled Daniel to return to AEgydius Place. Again he looked up at the windows, this time beseechingly. The storm within his heart became more violent. For a long time he ran through the streets, and reached home at last along toward five o'clock.

As he passed through the dark hall, he saw a light up on the landing. Meta was carrying it. She was already stirring about, ready to begin her morning's work. He hesitated; he looked at her; with three steps he was by her side.

"So late?" she whispered with premonitory embarrassment, and began to finger her dress, which she had not yet buttoned up.

"Oh, what a joy to take hold of a living human being on this glorious day!" he exclaimed.

She offered some resistance, but when he tried to take her into her room, she bent her body backward, and thus pressed about his wrist. She was still carrying the light.

"Oh, if you only knew how I feel, Meta. I need you. Hold me tight in your arms."

She made no more resistance. Perhaps she too was not without her fervent desire. Perhaps it was the time of day that made nature more insistent than usual. Perhaps she was suffering from loneliness in the company of the three sisters. It was still night and dark; but for her it was already day; it was the first day in the year, and she greeted it in festive mood. She yielded to him.

She was a virgin; she had no idea of the responsibility she was taking upon herself. Man had never been exactly a mystery to her, but now she felt for the first time the congenerous creature—and she gave in to him.

Daniel returned to earth after having knocked at the portals of the gods with tremendous wishes. The gods smiled their profoundest smile; for they had decided to have an especial fate arise from this hour.

IV

A meeting of the Social Democrats was being held in Gosten Court. They had met to discuss the Chancellor's speech on accident insurance.

The first speaker was Deputy Stoerbecker. But his voice had no carrying power, and what he said died away almost unheard.

Jason Philip Schimmelweis followed him. He presented a fearful indictment of the government. The official representative of the government advised him to be more reserved, whereupon he reinvigorated himself with a draught of beer. Then he hurled the full beaker of that wrathful scorn for which his heart, beating for the people, was noted, at the head of the individual who was first and foremost responsible for the affairs of the Empire. He did not mention Bismarck by name; he spoke instead of a certain bogey. He snatched the halo from his head, swore that he would some day unmask him and show the people that he was a traitor, branded his fame as a tissue of lies, his deeds as the disgrace of the century.

The venomous and eloquent hatred of the pudgy little man inflamed the minds that drank in his oratory. Jason Philip was greeted with a tumult of applause as he took his seat. His face was a bright scarlet red.

The leaders of the party, however, were noticeably quiet. In a moment or two, Deputy Stoerbecker returned with two comrades eager to enter into a debate with Jason Philip. He followed them into a side room. Exalted at the thought that they had been delegated to express to him the gratitude of the party for his speech, he smiled the smile of vanity and caressed his beard with his fingers.

"What is the matter, gentlemen? Why are you so serious? Did I go too far? I assume complete responsibility for everything I said. But be calm! They are getting afraid of us. The air has a dubious odour. The French are becoming cantankerous again."

"No, Comrade Schimmelweis, that is not it. You have got to vindicate yourself. You are a Proteus, Comrade Schimmelweis. Your right hand does not know what your left hand is doing. You are treating us disgracefully. You are ploughing in the widow's garden. You preach water and guzzle wine. You have entered into a conspiracy with the grafters of the town. You are in collusion with the people down at the Prudentia, and you are filling your own coffers in this gigantic swindle. From morning to night you enrich yourself with the hard-earned pennies of the poor. That is sharp practice, Jason Philip Schimmelweis, sharp practice, we say. Now you have got to sever all connection with the Prudentia, or the Party is going to kick you out."

Then it was that Jason Philip Schimmelweis rose to his true heights of eloquence. He insisted that his hands were clean, his left one and also his right one; that he was working in the interest of a good cause; and that threats could not intimidate him. He made it plain that he would bow to no dictatorship operating under the mask of equality and fraternity. He cried out that if the people wanted a scandal they could have it, but they would find him armed to the teeth. And he assured them that wherever he went in this wide, wide world, he would find the doors open to welcome him.

He then made a sudden about-face, and left his comrades standing. On the way home he continued to murmur murmurs of embitterment to himself.

Like a seasoned sailor eager to escape the storms of a raging sea, he steered his good ship toward other and more hospitable shores. Three days later he went to Baron Siegmund von Auffenberg, the leader of the Liberals, and offered him his services. He told him that he was willing to make any sacrifice for the great Liberal Party.

V

For thirty-five minutes, by his own watch, he cooled his heels in the ante-chamber. He made one caustic remark after another touching on the arrested development of the feeling of equality among the rich. Genuine rebel that he was, he did not repudiate himself even when he was practising high treason.

When he was finally taken into the office, he was not blinded in the slightest by the luxuriousness of the furniture, the rugs, or the oil paintings. He displayed not the remotest shimmer of servility on meeting the illustrious Baron. He sat down on one of the chairs with complete equanimity, took no notice of the French-speaking parrot, and never cast a single glance at the breakfast table covered with appetising tid-bits. But he did present his case with all due straightforwardness and simplicity.

"Fine," said the Baron, "fine! I hardly believe that you will find it necessary to make a radical change in your battlefront. A conscienceless agitator you have never been. You have a family, a home of your own; your affairs are in good condition; and in the bottom of your heart you love order and discipline. I have in truth been expecting you for a long while. Nor am I exaggerating when I confess to you that you had to bolt, sooner or later."

Jason Philip blushed with satisfaction. With the bearing of a cabman who has just pocketed his tip, he replied: "I thank you very much, Baron."

"On one point we are wholly agreed," said the Baron, "and it seems to me to be the most important—"

"Quite right," interrupted Jason Philip, "you allude to the fight against Bismarck. Yes, on this point we are, I hope, of precisely the same opinion. I will do my part. Hand and heart on it, Baron. I could look with perfectly cold blood on this knight of obscurantism writhing on the rack."

Herr von Auffenberg heard this temperamental statement with noticeably tenuous reassurance. He smiled just a little, and then said: "Wait a minute, my friend, don't be quite so savage." He reached for his smelling salts, held them to his nose, and closed his eyes. Then he got up, folded his hands across his back, and walked up and down the room a few times.

What he said after this was as familiar to him as the letters of the alphabet. While Jason Philip gaped at his lips in dumb inspiration, the Baron himself thought of things that had not the remotest connection with what he said.

"The very same man who tried to make the new Empire inhabitable, with the aid of a liberal code of laws, and who brought the long-drawn-out quarrel between the Emperor and the Pope to a happy conclusion, is now trying, by word, thought, and deed, gradually to destroy all liberal traditions and to proclaim the Roman High Priest as the real creator of peace. All that the German Chancellor could do to give the final blow to liberalism he has done. The reaction has not hesitated to abandon the idea of the Kulturkampf and to work instead in the interests of class hatred and racial prejudice, nurturing them even with deeds of violence. Faced with the crimes they themselves have committed, they will see their own children despised and rejected."

"Depeche-toi, mon bon garcon," screeched the parrot.

"I am happy at the thought of having snatched a precious booty from the claws of anarchy, and of having won a new citizen for the State, my dear Herr Schimmelweis. But for the time being it will be advisable for you to keep somewhat in the background. They will be inclined to make your change of political conviction the subject of vociferous attacks, and that might injure the cause."

VI

What was the old Baron really thinking about while he delivered this political speech?

There was just one thought in his mind; the same sullen, concealed anger gnawed incessantly at his heart.

He thought incessantly of his son, of the contempt which he had experienced because of him, and was still experiencing daily, even hourly, because of the fact that Eberhard had withdrawn from his power, had repudiated him.

He could not get over the fact that he had heaped up millions, and that Eberhard, so far as it was humanly possible to calculate—and in accordance with the law—would some day fall heir to a part of these millions. He knew very little about poverty; but his poisoned mind could think of nothing else than the satisfaction he would derive from being able, somehow, to deliver this abortive scion of his own name and blood over to poverty. Thus did he wish to take vengeance; thus would he punish.

But it was impossible for him to wreak vengeance on his son as he would have liked to: between the execution of the punishment and himself stood the law. The very thought that his riches were increasing daily, hourly, that the millions he had were creating new millions without his moving a finger, that he could not even stop the flood if he wished to, and that consequently the share of this disloyal, rebellious, and hateful son was becoming larger daily, even hourly—this thought he could not endure. It poisoned his peace of mind, paralysed his powers, robbed him of all natural and legitimate joy, and enveloped his days in a cloud of despair.

A modern Midas, he transformed everything he touched into gold; and the more gold he had the sadder his life became, the more revengeful his soul.

The tones of a piano reached his ear; it was his wife who was playing. She played Mendelssohn's "Song Without Words." He shook with disgust; for of all things repulsive, music was to him the most repulsive.

"Depeche-toi, mon bon garcon," screeched the parrot.

VII

During Jason Philip's absence, poorly dressed people frequently came to the shop and demanded that Theresa give them back the money they had paid in on their insurance.

Some of them became very much excited when Theresa told them that she would do nothing of the kind, that the insurance was the affair of her husband, and that she had nothing whatever to do with it. A locksmith's apprentice had given a sound thrashing to Zwanziger, the clerk, who had hastened up to protect the wife of his employer. A gold-beater from Fuerth had created so much excitement that the police had to be called in. A cooper's widow, who had managed to pay her premiums for one year, but had been unable to continue the payment for the quite sufficient reason that she had been in the hospital, fell headlong to the floor in epileptic convulsions when she heard how matters stood.

It finally reached the point where Theresa was frightened every time she saw a strange face. She breathed more easily when a day had passed without some disagreeable scene, but trembled at the thought of what might happen on the day to come.

What disturbed her more than anything else was the inexplicable disappearance of small sums of money; this had been going on for some time. A man came into the office once and laid his monthly premium, one taler in all, on the counter. When he left, Theresa closed the door behind him in order that she might be able to watch the snow storm from the window. When she returned to the desk the taler had disappeared. She asked where it was. Jason Philip, who was just then handing some books up the ladder to Zwanziger, became so gruff that one might have thought she had accused him of the theft. She counted the money over in the till, but in vain; the taler had vanished.

She had forgotten, or had not noticed, that Philippina had been in the office. She had brought her father his evening sandwiches, and then gone out again without making the slightest noise; she wore felt shoes.

On another occasion she missed a number of groschen from her purse. On still another, a spice merchant came in and demanded that she pay a bill of three marks. She was certain she had already paid it; she was certain she had given Philippina the money to pay it. Philippina was called in. She, however, denied having anything to do with it, and acted with such self-assurance that Theresa, completely puzzled, reached down in her pocket and handed over the three marks in perfect silence.

She had suspected the maid, she had suspected the clerk. She even suspected Jason Philip himself; she thought that he was appropriating money to pay his drinking expenses. And she suspected Philippina. But in no case could she produce the evidence; her spying and investigating were in vain. Then the thieving stopped again.

For Philippina, who had been doing all the stealing, feared she might be discovered, and adopted a less hazardous method of making herself a rich woman: she stole books, and sold them to the second-hand dealer. She was sly enough to take books that had been on the shelves for a long while, and not to do all her business with one dealer: she would go first to one and then to another.

The money which she scraped together in this way, as secretly and greedily as a jack-daw, she hid in the attic. There was a loose brick in the wall near the chimney. This she removed; and in time she removed other bricks. And once her treasures were safely stored in the hole, she would replace the bricks and set a board up against them.

When everything had become perfectly quiet and she felt wholly at ease, she would sit down, fold her hands, and give herself up to speechless meditation, an evil and fanatic dream playing over her features as she did.

VIII

One evening in February, Theresa and Philippina chanced to be sitting by the lamp mending the week's wash. Jason Philip entered the room; there was a sheepish expression on his face; he rubbed his hands.

Since Theresa did not consider it worth her trouble to ask him why he was in such a good humour, he suddenly laughed out loud and said: "Now we can pack up, my dear. I see it in writing: The wonder of the age, or the humiliated relatives. A touching tableau presented by Herr Daniel Nothafft of the Schimmelweis family."

"I do not understand you; you are talking like a harlequin again," said Theresa.

"Compositions by Daniel are going to be played in a public concert," Philippina informed her mother with that old, harsh voice of hers.

"How do you know?" asked Theresa, in a tone of evident distrust.

"I read it in the paper."

"The miracle is to take place in the Harmony Society," said Jason Philip, by way of confirming Philippina's remark, with an expression of enigmatic malevolence. "There is to be a public rehearsal on Thursday, and there is nothing on earth that can keep me away. The music dealer, Zierfuss, has given me two tickets, and if you want to, why, you can come along and see how they make a local hero out of a plain loafer."

"I?" responded Theresa, in a tone of contemptuous amazement, "not one step will I take. What have I got to do with your imbecile concerts?"

"But these gentlemen are going to be disillusioned, terribly so," continued Jason Philip in a threatening tone. "There is still a certain amount of common sense left, just as there are means of proceeding against a common, ordinary swindler."

Philippina raised her head in the mood of a person who has come to a sudden decision: "C'n I go 'long, Pop?" she asked, her ears as red as fire.

It was more than a request. Jason Philip was startled at the intractable expression on the girl's face. "Sure," he said, avoiding as well as he could the mute opposition on the part of Theresa, "but take a whistle along so that you can make cat calls."

He sank back with a comfortable sigh on his chair, and stretched out his legs. Philippina knelt down and took off his boots. He then put on his slippers. Each of them bore a motto embroidered in red. On the left one were the words "For tired father"; on the right one, "Consolation."

IX

Eleanore had not told her father why she had left her position with Alfons Diruf. Nor did Jordan ask her why when he learned that she did not wish to speak about it. He suspected that there was some disagreeable incident back of it, and if he maintained a strict silence it was because he feared his own wrath and grief.

She soon found another position. A schoolmate and good friend of hers, Martha Degen, the daughter of the pastry-baker, had married Herr Ruebsam, a notary public and an old man to boot. Eleanore visited the Ruebsams occasionally, as did also her father; and in the course of conversation it came out that Herr Ruebsam needed an assistant copyist. Since it was then impossible to give Eleanore a desk in the office, she was allowed to do all her work at home.

Friedrich Benda had also given her a cordial letter of recommendation to Herr Bock, Counsellor of Archives, who was just then engaged in writing a voluminous work on the history of Nuremberg. It would be her task to arrange Herr Bock's muddled manuscript.

It was a laborious undertaking, but she learned a great deal from it. Her thirsty mind would draw nourishment even from dry and lifeless subjects.

She was seized with a desire to fill up the gaps in her education. She begged Benda first for this book and then for that one. And after having written the whole day long, she would often sit down and read until late at night.

Everything she came in contact with she either assimilated or shook off: she dragged nothing along in the form of surface impedimenta; it became a part of her being, or she threw it to one side.

Daniel had not called for a long while. He was busy with the rehearsals which Wurzelmann was conducting. Professor Doederlein was not to take charge of the orchestra until it had been thoroughly drilled. The programme was to consist of Daniel's works and the "Leonore Overture." Wurzelmann referred to the Beethoven number as "a good third horse in the team."

Daniel also had a lot of business to transact with the impresario Doermaul: the company was to go on the road in March, and many things had to be attended to. The contract he signed was for three years at a salary of six hundred marks a year.

A few days before the public rehearsal he came to Jordan's with three tickets: one for Jordan himself and the other two for the sisters. The public rehearsal was quite like a regular concert; over a hundred persons had been invited.

Jordan was just getting ready to go out. "That is fine, that is great: I can hear some more music now. I am looking forward to the concert with extreme pleasure. When I was a young fellow I rarely missed a concert. But that was long ago; indeed, when I think it over I see how old I am. The years pass by like milestones on the highway of life. Well, Daniel, I thank you, thank you very much!"

Eleanore's joy was also great. As soon as her father had gone, she remarked that Daniel had looked for Gertrude; but she had left the room as soon as she saw him coming. Eleanore opened the door, and cried: "Gertrude, come in, right away! I have a surprise for you."

After a while Gertrude came in.

"A ticket for you to Daniel's concert," said Eleanore, radiant with joy, and handed her the green card of admission.

Gertrude looked at Eleanore; and she wanted to look at Daniel. But her heavy glance, slowly rising from the floor, barely reached his face before it returned to its downward position, aggrieved and pained. Then she shook her head, and said: "A ticket for the concert? For me? Are you serious, Eleanore?" Again she shook her head, amazed and indignant. Whereupon she went to the window, leaned her arm against the cross bars, and pressed her head against her arm.

Daniel followed her with looks of glowing anger. "You can take sheep to the slaughter," he said, "you can throw thieves in a dungeon, you can transport lepers to a hospital for incurables, but you cannot force an emotional girl to listen to music."

He became silent; a pause ensued. Tortured at the thought that Daniel's eyes were riveted on her back, Gertrude turned around, went to the stove, sat down, and pressed her cheek against the Dutch tiles.

Daniel took two steps, stood by her side, and exclaimed: "But suppose I request that you go? Suppose my peace of mind or something else of importance to the world, consolation, liberation, or improvement, depends on your going? Suppose I request that you go for one of these reasons? What then?"

Gertrude had become as pale as death. She looked at him for a moment, then turned her face to one side, drew up her shoulders as if she were shivering with cold, and said: "Well—then—then—I'll go. But I will be sorry for it ... sorry for it."

Eleanore was a witness to this scene. Her eyes, wide open when it began, grew larger and larger as it advanced through its successive stages. As she looked at Daniel a kindly, languishing moisture came to them, and she smiled.

Daniel, however, had become vexed. He mumbled a good-bye and left. Eleanore went to the window and watched him as he ran across the square, holding his hat with both hands as a shield against the driving wind.

"He is an amusing fellow," she said, "an amusing fellow."

She then lifted her eyes to the clouds, whose swift flight above the church roof pleased her.

X

It was the original intention to begin the regular evening concert with the third "Fidelio Overture." Doederlein was of the opinion that it offered no special difficulties: the general rehearsal was to be devoted primarily to the works of the novice. He raised his baton, and silence filled the auditorium.

The "Nuremberg Serenade" opened with ensemble playing of the wind instruments. It was a jovial, virile theme which the violins took up after the wind instruments, plucked it to pieces in their capricious way, and gradually led it over into the realm of dreams. The night became living: a gentle summer wind blew, glow worms flitted about, Gothic towers stood out in the sultry darkness, plebeian figures crept into the narrow, angular alleys; it was night in Nuremberg. The acclamation a glorious past with an admonition to the future fell upon the smug complacency of the present, the heroic mingled with the jocose, the fantastic with the burlesque, romanticism found its counterpart, and all this was achieved through a flood of genuine melody in which stodginess played no part, while charm was abundant in every turn and tune.

The professional musicians were astonished; and their astonishment was vigorously expressed in their criticisms. The general admiration, to be sure, was somewhat deafened by the unpleasant end that the rehearsal was destined to come to; but one critic, who enjoyed complete independence of soul, though an unfortunate incident in his life had compelled him to relinquish his influential circle in the city and retire to a limited sphere of activity in the province, wrote: "This artist has the unquestioned ability to become the light and leader of his generation. Nature created him, his star developed him. May Heaven give him the power and patience indispensable to the artist, if he would be born again and become a man above the gifts of men. If he only does not reach out too soon for the ripe fruits, and, intoxicated by the allurements of the lower passions, fail to hear the voice of his heart! He has taken a lofty flight; the azure gates of renown have swung wide open to him. Let him only be cautious about his second descent into the night."

The same connoisseur found the composition of "Vineta" less ingenious, and its instrumentation suffering from the lean experience of a beginner. Yet even this work was strongly applauded. The impresario Doermaul clapped his hands until the perspiration poured from his face. Wurzelmann was beside himself with enthusiasm. Old Herold smiled all over his face. The long-haired found it of course quite difficult to subdue their jealousy, but even they were not stingy with their recognition.

But how did Herr Carovius feel? His spittle had a bitter taste, his body pained him. When Andreas Doederlein turned to the audience and bowed, Carovius laughed a laugh of tremendous contempt. And Jason Philip Schimmelweis? He would have felt much more comfortable if the hand-clapping had been so much ear-boxing, and Daniel Nothafft, the culprit, had been the objective. The boy who had been cast out had become the leader of men! Jason Philip put his hand to his forehead, shook his head, and was on the point of exclaiming, "Oh, ye deceivers and deceived! Listen, listen! I know the boy; I know the man who has made fools of you here this evening!" He waited to see whether the misunderstanding, the colossal swindle, would not be cleared up automatically. He did not wait in vain.

At the close of the "Serenade," Jordan was struck by Gertrude's feverish paleness. He asked her whether she felt ill, but received no reply. During the performance of the second piece she kept putting her hands to her bosom, as if she were suffering from repressed convulsions. Her eyes were now lifeless, now glowing with an uncanny fire. As soon as the piece was finished, she turned to her father and asked him to take her home. Jordan was frightened. Those sitting next to him looked at the girl's pale face, sympathised with her, and made conventional remarks. Eleanore wanted to go home too, but Gertrude whispered to her in her imperious way and told her to stay. Familiar as she was with Gertrude's disposition, she thought that it was simply a passing attack of some kind, and regained her composure.

Daniel was standing at the door, talking to Benda and Wurzelmann. He was very much excited; his two companions were trying to appease his embitterment against Andreas Doederlein. "Ah, the man doesn't know a thing about his profession," he exclaimed, and scorned all attempts to effect a reconciliation between him and the leader of the orchestra. "What is left of my compositions is debris only. He drags the time, never even tries to make a legatura, scorns a piano every time he comes to one, pays no attention to crescendos, never retards—it is terrible! My works cannot be played in public like that!"

Gertrude and her father passed by quickly and without greeting. Daniel was stupefied. The lifeless expression in Gertrude's face unnerved him. He felt as if he had been struck by a hammer, as if his own fate were inseparably connected with that of the girl. Her step, her eyes, her mouth were, he felt, a part of his own being. And the fact that she passed by without even speaking to him, cold, reserved, hostile, filled him with such intense anger that from then on he was not accountable for what he did.

The flood of melody in Beethoven's great work was on the point of pouring forth from the orchestra in all its exalted ruggedness. What happened? There came forth instead a confused, noisy clash and clatter. Daniel was seized with violent restlessness. It was hard enough to see his own works bungled; to see this creation with its delicate soul and titanic power, a work which he knew as he knew few things on this earth, torn to tatters and bungled all around was more than he could stand. The trumpet solo did not sound as though it came from some distant land of fairy spirits: it was manifestly at the people's feet and it was flat. He began to tremble. When the calm melancholy andante, completely robbed of all measure and proportion by the unskilled hand of the leader and made to dissipate in senseless sounds, reached his ear, he was beside himself. He rushed on to the platform, seized the arm of the conductor with his icy fingers, and shouted: "That is enough! That is no way to treat a divine creation!"

The people rose in their seats. The instruments suddenly became silent, with the exception of a cello which still whimpered from the corner. Andreas Doederlein bounded back, looked at the mad man, his mouth as wide as he could open it, laid the baton on the desk, and stammered: "By Jupiter, this is unheard of!" The musicians left their places and grouped themselves around the strange man; the tumult in the public grew worse and worse. They asked questions, threatened, tried to set each other at ease, scolded and raged. In the meantime Daniel Nothafft, his head bowed, his back bent, stood there on the platform, glowing with anger and determined to have his revenge.

A few minutes later, Andreas Doederlein was sitting at the table in the musicians' waiting room. He looked like Emperor Barbarossa in Kyffhaeuser. He had well founded reason to express his contempt for the decadence and impiety of the youth of to-day. It was superfluous for him to remark that a man who would conduct himself as Daniel had done should be eliminated from the ranks of those who lay claim to the help and consideration of sane people. The dignified gentlemen of the Orchestral Union were of the same opinion; you could search the annals of history from the beginning of time, and you would never find a case like this. Mild eyes flashed, grey beards wagged. The deliberation was brief, the sentence just. A committee waited on Daniel to inform him that his compositions had been struck from the programme. The news spread like wild-fire.

Who was happier than Jason Philip Schimmelweis?

He was like a man who gets up from the table with a full stomach, after having sat down at it fearing lest he starve to death. On his way home he whistled and laughed alternately and with well balanced proportion.

"There you see it again," he said to his daughter, as she walked along at his side, "you see it again: you cannot get blood from a turnip any more than you can get happiness from misery. A jackass remains a jackass, a culprit a culprit, and loafing never fails to bring the loafer to a disgraceful end. The Devil has a short but nimble tail; and it makes no difference how slovenly he may conduct his business, his recruits have got to pay the piper in the end. This will be a windfall for mother. Let's hurry so that we can serve it to her while it's still hot!"

And Philippina—she had never taken her eyes off the floor the entire evening—seemed to be utterly unconscious of the fact at present that she was surrounded by houses and people. She was a defeated woman; she wanted to be. She had much to conceal; her young breast was a hell of emotions, but her ugly, gloomy old face was as inanimate and empty as a stone.

Herr Carovius waited at the gate. After all the other people had gone, Daniel, Benda, Wurzelmann, and Eleanore came along. Daniel's storm cape fluttered in the wind; his hat was drawn down over his eyes. Herr Carovius stepped up before him.