Part 65

He had somehow managed to get hold of a glove Eleanore had lost, and possibly it was this that made him so convivial. He picked up an almond shell from the serving tray, and threw it at Fräulein Varini. He let his leery, lascivious eyes roam about over the cut glass and the decorations of the hall, and never once grew tired of praising the wealth and splendour of the house. He acted as though he were quite at home. He raised his wine glass, and declared that he was charmed by the flavour and colour of the costly, precious juice from the grape: he tried to give the impression that he knew the Auffenberg wine cellar from years of intimate association with it.

Then it happened that through a hasty, awkward movement, he upset his plate; a rivulet of rich brown gravy ran down over his white vest. He became silent; he retired within himself. He dipped his napkin in the water, and rubbed and rubbed. The waiters tittered. He buttoned up his coat, and looked like a show window in the dead of night.

The eyes of the waiters were also given the privilege of feasting on another rare social phenomenon. They noticed that Kapellmeister Nothafft was sitting at the table in his stocking feet. His patent leather shoes had hurt him so much that he made short work of it and took them off during the dinner. There they stood without master or servant, one at the right, the other at the left of his disencumbered feet. Whenever the waiters passed by, they would cast one furtive but profitable glance under the table, and bite their lips to keep from bursting out in laughter.

This rude offence to social dignity was not unknown to the other dinner guests. They whispered, smiled, shrugged their shoulders, and shook their heads. Daniel made no effort to conceal his bootlessness when the guests rose to leave the table; without giving the astonishment of his companions a single thought, he once more drew the patent leather torturers on to his extremities. But he had made a mistake: he had gambled and lost.

The news of the extraordinary event was fully exploited on the following day. It was carried from house to house, accumulated momentous charm in its course, passed from the regions of the high to those of the less high and quite low, and provoked storms of laughter everywhere. No one had anything to say about the symphony; everybody was fully informed concerning the patent leather episode.

On the way home Daniel walked with Eleanore. Gertrude followed at some distance with M. Rivière; she could not walk rapidly.

“How did you find it, Eleanore? Didn’t you have the feeling that you were at a feast of corpses?”

“Dear,” she murmured; they walked on.

After they had gone along for some time in perfect silence, they came to a narrow gateway. Eleanore suddenly felt that she could no longer endure Daniel’s mute questioning. She pulled her silk veil closer to her cheeks, and said: “Give me time! Don’t hurry me! Please give me time!”

“If I hadn’t given you time, my dear girl, I should not have deserved this moment,” he replied.

“I cannot, I cannot,” she said, with a sigh of despair. She had only one hope, one ray of hope left, and her whole soul was fixed on that. But she was obliged to act in silence.

Standing in the living room with Gertrude, Daniel’s eye fell on the mask of Zingarella; it had been decorated with rose twigs. Under the green young leaves fresh buds shone forth; they hung around the white stucco of the mask like so many little red lanterns. “Who did that?” he asked.

“Eleanore was here in the afternoon; she did it,” replied Gertrude.

His burning eyes were riveted on the mask, when Gertrude stepped up to him, threw her arms around him, and in the fulness of her feelings exclaimed: “Daniel, your work was wonderful, wonderful!”

“So? Did you like it? I am glad to hear it,” he said, in a tone of dry conventionality.

“The people don’t grasp it,” she said gently, and then added with a blush: “But I understand it; I understand it, for it belongs to me.”

The following day he laid the score of the “Harzreise” together with the words in a big old chest, and locked it. It was like a funeral.

XII

In the dark, winding alleys behind the city wall stand little houses with large numbers and coloured lanterns. They are filled with a sweetish, foul odour, and have been laboriously built up out of dilapidated lumber-rooms. From the cracks in the closed blinds come forth, night after night, the sounds of shrill laughter. Those who enter are received by half-nude monsters, and are made to sit down on monstrous chairs and sofas covered with red plush.

The citizen calls these places dens of vice. Between Friday and Sunday he thinks with lustful horror of the inhabitants with their bloated or emaciated bodies and the sad or intoxicated stare of their eyes.

Herr Carovius wended his way to this quarter of the city. Because it was only a shadow which he embraced in hours when his inflamed imagination, vitiated by all the poisons of the earth, conjured up a human body, he was angry; now he went there, and bought himself a real human body.

After he had been in a half a dozen of these houses, had been jubilantly greeted, and then thrown out to the accompaniment of bawdy abuse, he at last found what he had been looking for: a creature whose cunning had not entirely been lost, who still had the features of a daughter of man, and whose figure and character still had the power to call up a memory, provided one were firmly decided to see what one wished to see and to forget what one wished to forget.

Her name was Lena, charming reminder of a desired reality! He went with her as she left the circle of her companions, and followed her into the wretched hole between winding stairs and attic rooms. He rattled the coins in his pocket, and gave his orders. The nymph had to put on a street dress, set a modest hat on her head, and draw a veil over her rouged face. Thereupon he went up to her, spoke to her courteously, and kissed her hand. He had never in his life acted in so polite and chivalric a fashion in the presence of a woman.

The prostitute was frightened; she ran away. She had to be given instructions; these were given her by the madame of the house; for Herr Carovius was rattling the coins in his pocket. “You will have to be patient and indulgent; we are not prepared for such refined guests here.”

He returned. Lena had been told what to do. She soon fell into her rôle.

“To be frank,” he said to Lena, “I am inexperienced in the arts of love. I am too proud to kowtow to the berobed and bodiced idol. A woman is a woman, and a man is a man. They delude themselves and each other, or try to, into believing that each woman is a special person, and each man a man to himself. Idiocy!”

The prostitute grinned.

He walked back and forth; the room was just large enough to allow him to take three steps. He recalled the expression on Eleanore’s face during the performance of the symphony; his greedy eyes had rested on her all the while. He became enraged: “You don’t imagine that progress can be made by such amateurish efforts?” he said with a roar. “It is all hocus-pocus. There is as a matter of fact no such thing as progress in art, any more than there is progress in the course of the stars. Listen!”