Part 117

“Station means an unexpected visit; war means discord with various personalities; and gipsies mean that you are going to have to do with some flippant people.” All this Philippina rattled off in the High German of her secret code.

Philippina was also an adept in geomancy. Dorothea would often sit by her side, and ask her whether this fellow or that fellow were in love with her, whether this girl loved that fellow and the other girl another, and so on through the whole table of local infatuations. Philippina would make a number of dots on a sheet of paper, fill in the numbers, hold the list up to the light, and divulge the answer of the oracle.

In a very short while the two were one heart, one soul. Dorothea could always count on Philippina’s laughter of approval when she fell into one of her moods of excessive friskiness. And if Agnes failed to show the proper amount of interest, Philippina would poke her in the ribs and exclaim: “You little rascallion, has the cat got your tongue?”

Agnes would then sneak off in mournful silence to her school books, and sit for hours over the simplest kind of a problem in the whole arithmetic. Dorothea would occasionally bring her a piece of taffy. She would wrap it up, put it in her pocket, and give it the next day to a schoolmate from whose note book she had copied her sums in subtraction.

Herr Seelenfromm stopped Philippina on the street, and said to her: “Well, how are you getting along? How is the young wife making out?”

“Oi, oi, we’re living on the fat of the land, I say,” Philippina replied, stretching her mouth from ear to ear. “Chicken every day, cake too, wine always on hand, and one guest merely opens the door on another.”

“Nothafft must have made a pile of money,” remarked Herr Seelenfromm in amazement.

“Yes, he must. Nobody works at our house. The wife’s pocket-book at least is always crammed.”

The sky was blue, the sun was bright, spring had come.

Andreas Döderlein always took Sunday dinner with his children. He loved a juicy leg of pork, a salad garnished with greens and eggs, and a tart drowned in sugar. Old Jordan, who was privileged to sit at the table, let the individual morsels dissolve on his tongue. He had never had such delicacies placed before him in his life. At times he would cast a glance of utter astonishment at Daniel.

He very rarely took part in the conversation. As soon as the dishes had been removed, he would get up and quietly go to his room.

“A very remarkable old man,” said Andreas Döderlein one Sunday, as he sat tipped back on his chair, picking his teeth.

“Ah, we have our troubles with him,” said Dorothea abusively, “he is an incorrigible pot-watcher. He comes to the kitchen ten times a day, sticks his nose up in the air, asks what we are going to have for dinner, and then goes out and stands in the hall, with the result that our guests come and stumble over him.”

Andreas Döderlein emitted a growl of lament.

“How are your finances, my son?” he asked, turning to Daniel with an air of marked affability. “Would you not like to bolster up your income by taking a position in the conservatory? You would have time for it; your work as organist at St. Ægydius does not take up all your time. Herold is going to be retired, you know. He is seventy-five and no longer able to meet the requirements. All that we will have to do will be for me to give you my backing. Three thousand marks a year, allocation to your widow after ten years of service, extra fees—I should think you would regard that as a most enticing offer. Or don’t you?”

Dorothea ran up to her father in a spirit of unrestrained jubilation, threw her arms around his bulky body, and kissed him on his flabby cheek.

“No thanks to me, my child,” said the Olympian; “to stand by you two is of course my duty.”

“What sort of a swollen stranger is that, anyhow?” thought Daniel to himself. “What does he want of me? Why does he come into my house and sit down at my table? Why is he so familiar with me? Why does he blow his breath on me?” Daniel was silent.

“I understand, my dear son, that you would abandon your leisure hours only with the greatest reluctance,” continued Döderlein with concealed sarcasm, “but after all, who can live precisely as he would like to live? Who can follow his own inclinations entirely? The everyday feature of human existence is powerful. Icarus must fall to the earth. With your wife anticipating a happy event, you cannot, of course, hesitate in the face of such an offer.”

Daniel cast an angry look at Dorothea.

“I will think it over,” said Daniel, got up, and left the room.

“It is unpleasant for him,” complained Dorothea; “he values his leisure above everything else in the world. But I will do all in my power to bring him around, Father. And you keep at him. He will resist and object. I know him.”

Thus it was brought to light that Daniel was no longer a mysterious and unfathomable individual in her estimation. She had found him out; she had divined him, in her way to be sure. He was much simpler than she had imagined, and at times she was really a bit angry at him for not arousing her curiosity more than he did. What she had fancied as highly interesting, thrilling, intoxicating, had proved to be quite simple and ordinary. The charm was gone, never to return. Her sole diversion lay in her attempts to get complete control over him through the skilful manipulation of her senses and her priceless youth.

Daniel felt that she was disappointed; he had been afraid of this all along. His anxiety increased with time, for it was evident that everything he said or did disappointed her. His anxiety caused him to be indulgent, where he had formerly been unbending. The difference in their ages made him patient and tractable. He feared he could not show her the love that she in her freshness and natural, unconsumed robustness desired. On this account he denied himself many things which he formerly could not have got along without, and put up with, many things that would have been intolerable to him as a younger man.

It needed only a single hour at night to make him promise to accept the position old Herold was leaving. He, as parsimonious with words as in the expression of feelings, succumbed to her cat-like cuddling. He capitulated in the face of her unpitying ridicule, and surrendered all to the prurient agility of a young body. Dark powers there are that set up dependencies between man and woman. When they rule, things do not work out in accordance with set calculation or inborn character. It takes but a single hour of the night to bend the most sacred truth of life into a lie.

VII

In the course of time Daniel had to provide for an increase in his annual salary. Dorothea had made a great many innovations that cost money. She had bought a dressing table, a number of cabinets, and a bath tub. The lamps, dishes, bed covers, and curtains she found old-fashioned, and simply went out and bought new ones.

Nothing gave her greater pleasure than to go shopping. Then the bills came in, and Daniel shook his head. He begged her to be more saving, but she would fall on his neck, and beseech and beseech until he acceded to every single one of her wishes.