Part 114

The old man sipped the wine with an air of adoration. “It must be nine or ten years since I have had any wine,” he said more or less to himself.

“You have not had a happy life,” replied Daniel.

“I will not complain, Daniel. I bear it because I have to. And who knows? Perhaps there is still a measure of joy in store for me. Perhaps; who knows?”

The two men sat in silence and drank. It was so still that you could hear the fluttering of the light in the lamp.

“Where can Philippina be?” asked Daniel.

“Yes, Philippina. I had forgot to tell you,” began old Jordan sorrowfully. “She came to me this afternoon, and told me she was going over to Frau Hadebusch’s with Agnes and was going to stay there until after the wedding. But she spoke in such a confused way that I couldn’t make out just what she planned to do. It sounded in fact as though she were thinking of leaving the house for good and all. I wonder whether the girl isn’t a little off in her head? Day before yesterday I heard an awful racket in the kitchen; and when I went down, I saw at least six plates lying on the floor all smashed to pieces. And as if this was not enough, she threatened to throw the dishwater on me. She was swearing like a trooper. Now tell me: how is this? Can she go over to Frau Hadebusch’s, and take Agnes with her without getting any one’s consent?”

Daniel made no reply. The thought of Philippina filled him with anguish; he feared some misfortune. He felt that he would have to let her have her way.

XIX

In the night Daniel became very much excited. He left the house, and, despite the darkness and the snow storm, wandered out to the country quite unmindful of the cold and snow and the wind.

He listened to the whisperings of his soul; he took council with himself. He looked up at the great black vaulted arch of heaven as though he were beseeching the powers above to send him the light he felt he needed. The morning of the approaching day seemed bleaker, blacker to him than the night that was passing. He was lost in anxiety: he went over to his graves.

He did not stop to think until well on his way that the gate to the cemetery would be closed; but he kept on going. He looked around for a place in the wall where he might climb over. Finally he found one, climbed up, scratched his hands painfully, leaped down into some snow-covered hedges, and then wandered around with his burden of grief over the stormy, desolate field of the dead. As he stood before Gertrude’s grave he was overwhelmed with the feeling of the hour: there were voices in the storm; he felt that the horror and the memory of it all would hurl him to the ground. But when he stood by the grave of Eleanore, he felt his peace return. The clouds suddenly opened on the distant horizon, and a moonbeam danced about him.

It was almost morning when he reached home.

A week later he went over to Siegmundshof and got Dorothea.

Sylvia and Dorothea came down through a snow-covered alley to meet him. They were walking arm in arm, and Sylvia was laughing at Dorothea’s easy-flowing conversation. They seemed to be getting along perfectly together: there could be no mistaking the picture he saw before him. Sylvia told Daniel when she was alone with him that she had taken a great liking to Dorothea. She remarked that her cheerfulness was irresistible and contagious, and that when she was with children she became a child herself.

Yet, despite all this, Sylvia studied Daniel. And when Dorothea was present she studied her too: she cast fleeting, searching, unassured glances at them—at Daniel and at Dorothea.

Daniel and Dorothea were married on a sunny day in December.

DOROTHEA

For the past fortnight, Philippina and Agnes had been living at Frau Hadebusch’s. A message came from Daniel telling Philippina that she and Agnes should return, or, if she preferred to stay with Frau Hadebusch, she should send Agnes home at once.

“There you have it,” said Frau Hadebusch, “the master speaks.”

“Ah, him—he’s been speakin’ to me for a long while. Much good it does him,” said Philippina. “The child stays with me, and I’m not going back. That settles it! What, Agnes? Yes?”

Agnes was sitting on the bench by the stove with Henry the idiot, reading the greasy pages of a cheap novel. When Philippina spoke to her, she looked up in a distracted way and smiled. The twelve-year-old child had a perfectly expressionless face; and as she never got out of the house for any length of time, her skin was almost yellow.

“It ain’t no use to try to buck him,” continued Frau Hadebusch, who looked as old as the mountains and resembled generally a crippled witch, “he c’n demand the kid, and if he does he’ll git her. If you ain’t careful, I’ll get mixed up in the mess before long.”

“Well, how do you feel about it, Agnes? Do you want to go back to your daddy?” said Philippina, turning to the girl, and looking at Frau Hadebusch in a knowing way.

Agnes’s face clouded up. She hated her father. This was the point to which Philippina had brought matters by her incessant whisperings and ugly remarks behind Daniel’s back. Agnes was convinced that she was a burden to her father, and his marriage had merely confirmed what she already felt she knew. Deep in her silent soul she carried the picture of her prematurely deceased mother, as if it were that of a woman who had been murdered, sacrificed. Philippina had told her how her mother had committed suicide; it was a fearful tale in her language. It had been the topic of conversation between her and her charge on many a cold, dark winter evening. Agnes always said that when she was big and could talk, she would take vengeance on her father.

When she could talk! That was her most ardent wish. For she was silent-born. Her soul pined in a prison that was much harsher and harder than that in which her mother’s soul had been housed and harassed. Gertrude had some bright moments; Agnes never. She was incapable of enthusiasm; she could not look up. For her heart, her soul was not merely asleep, torpid, lethargic; it was hopelessly dried up, withered. Life was not in it.

“I am not going to those Döderleins,” she said, crying.

But in the evening Daniel came over. He took Philippina to one side, and had a serious talk with her. He explained the reasons for his getting married a third time as well as he could without going too deeply into the subject. “I needed a wife; I needed a woman to keep house for me; I needed a companion. Philippina, I am very grateful to you for what you have done, but there must also be a woman in my home who can cheer me up, turn my thoughts to higher things. I have a heavy calling; that you cannot appreciate. So don’t get stubborn, Philippina. Pack up your things, and come back home. How can we get along without you?”

For the first time in his life he spoke to her as though she were a woman and a human being. Philippina stared at him. Then she burst out into a loud, boisterous laugh, and began to show her whole supply of scorn. “Jesus, Daniel, how you c’n flatter a person! Who’d a thought it! You’ve always been such a sour dough. Very well. Say: ‘Dear Philippina!’ Say it real slow: ‘D-e-a-r Philippina,’ and then I’ll come.”