Part 42

He became silent. The feeling of her worth to him swept like a fiery meteor through the heaven of his existence.

The statement that they were going to remain in Nuremberg made her happy, particularly because of her father. She said there was a small apartment for rent on Ægydius Place, three rooms, a very quiet neighbourhood. They went over to the window; Gertrude showed him the house. It was close to the church, right where the Place makes a turn.

Jordan came in, and welcomed Daniel with a long handshake. His hair had become greyer, he walked with more of a stoop, and his clothes showed traces of neglect.

When he heard what Daniel and Gertrude were planning to do, he shook his head: “It is a bad year, children. Why are you in such a hurry? Both of you are still young.”

“If we were older, we would have less courage,” replied Daniel.

Jordan took a seat, and buried his face in his hands. In course of time he looked up, and said that three years ago he had only eight thousand marks in the bank; that hard times had forced him to draw on this sum to keep the house going; and that to-day there was hardly a third of it left. Two thousand marks was all he could give Gertrude as a dowry; with that they would have to be satisfied, and get along as well as they could.

“We don’t need any more,” said Daniel; “as a matter of fact I did not expect that much. Now I haven’t a care in the world; I am ready for anything.”

A bat flew in at the open window, and then quietly flew out again. It had stopped raining. You could still hear the water trickling and splashing down the leaders and in the pipes. There was something heavy, portentous, in the air of this June evening.

XIV

At first Daniel had received small bits of news from England about Benda, but for a year and a half he had not heard a word. When Eleanore returned from Pommersfelden in July, she told him that she had received a letter from Benda in April, and that she had sent him this letter when he was at Naumburg. Daniel, however, had never received it, and the investigations which he made proved fruitless.

Benda’s mother was not in the city; she was living with relatives in Worms, but had kept her apartment at Herr Carovius’s.

Frau von Auffenberg was at Bad Ems, and did not plan to return until September. Daniel looked up old friends, and rebound the ties of former days. He also succeeded in getting a number of students to tutor, an occupation that netted him a little spending money.

He had to attend to a great deal of business for which he was quite unfit. He had imagined that he could get married just as he might go to a shop and buy something: he would not make any noise, nor would it take much time. He had a hundred moods, a hundred objections, a hundred grimaces. The apartment on Ægydius Place was already rented. It embittered him to think that in order to live with a person you loved, you had to have tables, beds, chairs, cupboards, lamps, glasses, plates, garbage cans, water pails, window cushions, and a thousand and one other foolish objects.

There was a great deal of talk in the city about the marriage. The people said they did not know what Jordan could be thinking of. They were convinced that he was in desperate financial straits if he would marry his daughter to an impecunious musician.

Daniel found everything hard: every day was his Day of Judgment. A melody was gnawing at his heart, trying to take on a pure and finished form. Freedom sounded in his ears with voices from above; his quiet fiancée begged for comradeship. The task to which he had dedicated himself demanded loneliness; then his blood carried him along and away, and he became like wax, but wild.

He would rush to Jordan’s house, enter the living room, his hair all dishevelled, sit down where the two sisters were working on Gertrude’s trousseau, and never utter a syllable until Gertrude would come up to him and lay her hand on his forehead. He thrust her back, but she smiled gently. At times, though none too frequently, he would take her by the arms and pull her down to him. When he did this, Eleanore would smile with marked demureness, as if it were not right for her to see two people in love.

There was a second-hand baby grand piano in Jordan’s living room. Daniel played on it in the evening, and the sisters listened. Gertrude was like a woman wrapt in peaceful slumber, her every wish having been fulfilled, with kindly spirits watching over her. Eleanore, however, was wide awake; she was awake and meditating.

The day of the wedding arrived. At half past nine in the morning, Daniel appeared in Jordan’s house. He wore an afternoon suit and a high hat! He was vexed, and villanous to behold, a picture of misery.

Benno, the man of the world, was forced to leave the room. No sooner was he outside than he laughed so heartily that he fell into a clothes basket. He did not approve of this marriage; he was ashamed to tell his friends about it.

Gertrude wore a plain street dress and a little virgin bonnet, then prescribed by fashion. She sat by the table, and gazed into space with wide-opened eyes.

Eleanore came into the room with a wreath of myrtle. “You must put this on, Gertrude,” she said, “just to please us; just to make us feel that you are a real bride. Otherwise you look too sober, too much as though you two were going to the recorder’s office on profane business.”

“Where did you get that wreath?” asked Jordan.

“I found it in an old chest; it is mother’s bridal wreath.”

“Really? Mother’s bridal wreath?” murmured Jordan, as he looked at the faded myrtle.

“Put it on, Gertrude,” Eleanore again requested, but Gertrude looked first at Daniel, and then laid it to one side.

Eleanore went up to the mirror, and put it on her own head.

“Don’t do that, child,” said Jordan with a melancholy smile. “Superstitious people say that you will remain an old maid forever, if you wear the wreath of another.”

“Then I will remain an old maid, and gladly so,” said Eleanore.