Chapter 9

The day Dorothea got married, Herr Carovius had gone to his lawyer to have the will he had drawn up the night before attested to. He had bequeathed his entire fortune, including his home and the furniture, to an institution to be erected after his death for the benefit of orphans of noble birth. Baron Eberhard von Auffenberg had been named as first director of the institution and sole executor of his will.

Herr Carovius refused to have anything more to do with music. He had a leather cover made for his long, narrow grand piano, and enshrouded in this, the instrument resembled a stuffed animal. He looked back on his passion for music as one of the aberrations of his youth, though he realised that he was chastising his spirit till it hurt when he took this attitude.

The method he employed to keep from having nothing to do was characteristic of the man: he went through all the books of his library looking for typographical errors. He spent hours every day at this work; he read the scientific treatises and the volumes of pure literature with his attention fixed on individual letters. When, after infinite search, he discovered a word that had been misspelled, or a grammatical slip, he felt like a fisherman who, after waiting long and patiently, finally sees a fish dangling on the hook.

Otherwise he was thoroughly unhappy. The beautiful evenness of his hair on the back of his neck had been transformed into a shaggy wilderness. He could be seen going along the street in a suit of clothes that was peppered with spots, while his Calabrian hat resembled a war tent that has gone through a number of major offensives.

He had again taken to frequenting the Paradise Café two or three times a week, not exactly to surrender himself to mournful memories, but because the coffee there cost twenty pfennigs, whereas the more modern cafés were charging twenty-five. His dinner consisted of a pot of coffee and a few rolls.

It came about that old Jordan likewise began to frequent the Paradise. For a long while the two men would go there, sit down at their chosen tables, and study each other at a distance. Finally the day came when they sat down together; then it became a custom for them to take their places at the same table, one back in the corner by the stove, where a quiet comradeship developed between them. It was rare that their conversation went beyond external platitudes.

Herr Carovius acted as though he were merely enduring old Jordan. But he never really became absorbed in his newspaper until the old man had come and sat down at the table with him, greeting him with marked respect as he did so. Jordan, however, did not conceal his delight when, on entering the café and casting his eyes around the room, they at last fell on Herr Carovius. While he sipped his coffee, he never took them off the wicked face of his vis-à-vis.