Part 36

“Eleanore, I can scarcely tell you how I feel toward you,” said Daniel, half confused, half angry, and then stopped with conspicuous suddenness when the fiery blue of her eyes fell upon him.

“You?” she whispered in astonishment, “you?”

“Yes, you,” he replied emphatically. “Later I can tell everybody; to-day it is true in a double sense: you seem to me just like a sister.”

He had laid the mask to one side and extended his left hand to Eleanore, and then, hesitating at first, he gave Gertrude his right hand with a most decisive gesture.

Eleanore straightened up, took the mask of Zingarella, and held it up before her face. “Little Brother,” she cried out in a teasing tone. The pale, sweet stone face was wonderful to behold, as it was raised above the body that was pulsing with life.

And Gertrude—for one second she hung on Daniel’s gaze, a sigh as deep as the murmuring of the sea sounded in her bosom, and then she lay in his arms. He kissed her without saying a word. His face was gloomy, his brow wrinkled.

“Little Brother” sounded out from behind the mask. But there was no banter in the expression; it was much more like a complaint, a revelation of anguish: “Little Brother!”

Daniel had left the city long ago. Eleanore chanced to meet Herr Carovius. He forced her to stop, conducted himself in such a familiar way, and talked in such a loud voice that the passersby simpered. He asked all about the young master, meaning Daniel.

He told her that “the good Eberhard”—it was his way of referring to Baron von Auffenberg—had gone to Munich for a few months, and was taking up with spiritists and theosophists.

“It is his way of having a fling,” said Herr Carovius, grinning from ear to ear. “In former times, when young noblemen wished to complete their education and have a little lark at the same time, they made the grand tour over Europe. Now-a-days they become penny-a-liners, or they go in for table-tipping. Humanity is on the decline, my charming little girl. To study the flower of the nation at close range is no longer an edifying occupation. It is rotten, as rotten, I tell you, as last winter’s apples. There is consequently no greater pleasure than to make such a young chap dance. You play, he dances; you whistle, he retrieves. It is a real treat!”

He laughed hysterically, and then had a coughing spell. He coughed so violently that the black cord suspended from his nose-glasses became tangled about a button on his great coat, and his glasses fell from his nose. In his awkwardness, intensified by his short-sightedness, he fumbled the button and the cord with his bony fingers until Eleanore came to the rescue. One move, and everything was again in order.

Herr Carovius was struck dumb with surprise. He would never have imagined that a young girl could be so natural and unembarrassed. He suspected a trap: was she making fun of him, or did she wish to do him harm? It had never occurred to him that one might voluntarily assist him when in distress.

Suddenly he became ashamed of himself; he lifted his eyes and smiled like a simpleton; he cast a glance of almost dog-like tenderness at Eleanore. And then, without saying a word, without even saying good-bye to her, he hastened across the street to hide as soon as he might in some obscure corner.

One afternoon in the last week of August, the Rüdiger sisters sent the boy who attended to their garden over to Eleanore with the urgent request that she call as soon as she possibly could. Feeling that some misfortune had befallen Daniel and that the sisters wished to tell her about it, Eleanore was not slow about making up her mind: exactly one quarter of an hour later she entered the Rüdigers’ front door.

A lamentable sight greeted her. Each of the three sisters was sitting in a high-backed chair, her arms hanging lifeless from her sides. The curtains were drawn; in the shaded light their faces looked like mummies. Nor was the general impression measurably brightened by the “Medea,” the “Iphigenie,” and the “Roman Woman” that hung on the wall, copies of the paintings of their idol.

Eleanore’s greeting was not returned. She did not dare leave without finding what was the matter, and the silence with which she was received was broken only when she herself decided to ask some questions.

Fräulein Jasmina took out her handkerchief and dried her eyes. Fräulein Saloma looked around somewhat like a judge at a session of court. And then she began to speak: “We three lonely women, forgotten by the world, have asked you to come to our house so that we might tell you of a crime that has been committed in our innocent home. We never heard of it until this morning. It is such an unexampled, gruesome, abominable deed that we have been sitting here ever since it was brought to our attention, wringing our hands in vain attempt to make up our minds as to what course we should pursue.”

Fräulein Jasmina and Fräulein Albertina nodded their heads in sadness and without looking up.

“Can we put the unfortunate girl out of the house?” continued Fräulein Saloma, “can we, sisters? No! Can we afford to keep her? No! What are we to do then? She is an orphan; she is all alone, abandoned by her infamous seducer, and exposed to unmitigated shame. What are we to do?”

“And you,” said Fräulein Saloma turning to Eleanore, “you who are bound to that gifted monster by ties the precise nature of which we are in no position to judge, you are to show us a way out of this labyrinth of our affliction.”

“If I only knew what you are talking about,” said Eleanore, a great burden falling from her heart as she realised that her initial fears were groundless. “By the monster you evidently mean Daniel Nothafft. What crime has he committed?”

Fräulein Saloma was indignant at the flippancy of her manner. She rose to her full stature, and said with punitive lips: “He has made our maid an ordinary prostitute, and the consequences are no longer to be concealed. Do you know what we are talking about now?”

Eleanore uttered a faint “Oh!” and blushed to the roots of her hair. In her embarrassment she opened her mouth to laugh, but she came very near to crying.

Her saddened feelings slowly crept back to Daniel, and as the picture of him rose before her mind’s eye, she turned from it in disgust. But she did not wish to allow this picture to remain in her memory: it was too flabby, petty, and selfish. Before she knew what she was doing, she, as a woman, had pardoned him. Then she shuddered, opened wide her eyes, and resumed her accustomed cheerfulness. She was again in complete control of herself.

The court had in the meanwhile examined the silent woman with stern scrutiny: “Where is Daniel Nothafft at present?” asked Fräulein Saloma.

“I do not know,” replied Eleanore, “he hasn’t written for over three weeks.”

“We must request you to inform him at once of the condition of the prostitute, for so long as such a person is in our house, we cannot sleep at night nor rest by day.”

“I am sorry that you take the matter so to heart,” said Eleanore, “and it is a rather disagreeable affair. But I have no right to mix myself up in it, nor have I the least desire to do so.”