Chapter 3

That evening Daniel visited Benda in his home. Benda showed him some armour and implements he had brought back with him from Africa. In explaining some of the more unusual objects, he described at length the customs of the African blacks.

Then he was seized with a headache, sat down in his easy chair, and was silent for a long while. He suddenly looked like an old man. The ravages his health had suffered while in the tropics became visible.

“Did you ever see Dorothea’s mother?” he asked, by way of breaking the long silence.

Daniel shook his head: “It is said that she is vegetating, a mere shadow of her former self, in some kind of an institution in Erlangen,” he replied.

“I have been told that neither Andreas Döderlein nor his daughter has ever, in all these years, taken the slightest interest in the unfortunate woman,” continued Benda. “Well, as to Andreas Döderlein, I have always known what to expect of him.”

Daniel looked up. “You hinted once that Döderlein was guilty of reprehensible conduct with regard to his wife. Do you recall? Is that in any way connected with Dorothea and her life? Do you care to discuss the matter?”

“I have no objection whatever to throwing such light on the incident as I have,” replied Benda. “It does have to do with Dorothea, and it explains, perhaps, some things about her. That is, it is possible that her character is in part due to the kind of father she grew up under and the kind of mother she lost when a mere child. It is strange the way these things work out: I am myself, in a way, interwoven with your own fate.”

He was silent for a while; memories were rushing to his mind. Then he began: “If you had ever known Marguerite Döderlein, she would have been just as unforgettable to you as she is to me. She and Eleanore—those were the two really musical women I have known in my life. They were both all nature, all soul. Marguerite’s youth was a prison; her brother Carovius was the jailer. When she married Döderlein, she somehow fancied she would escape from that prison, but she merely exchanged one for the other. And yet she hardly knew how it all came about. She accepted everything just as it came to her with unwavering fidelity and gentleness. Her soul remained unlacerated, unembittered.”

He rested his head on his hand; his voice became gentler. “We loved one another before we had ever spoken a word to each other. We met each other a few times on the street, once in a while in the park; and a number of times she stole up to me in the theatre. I was not reserved: I offered her my life, but she always insisted that she could not live without her child and be happy. I respected her feelings and restrained my own. For a while things went on in this way. We tortured ourselves, practised resignation, but were drawn together again, and then Döderlein suddenly began to be suspicious. Whether his suspicion was due to whisperings or to what he himself had at some time seen his wife do—it was impossible for her to play the hypocrite—I really do not know. At any rate he began to abuse her in the most perfidious manner. He tried to disturb her conscience. One night he went to her bed with a crucifix in his hand, and made her swear, swear on the life of her child, that she would never deceive him. He used all manner of threats and unctuous fustian. She took the oath.”

“Yes, my friend, she took the oath. And this oath seemed to her much more solemn and serious than the oath she had taken at the altar the day they were married. I knew nothing about it; she kept out of my sight. I could not endure it. One day she came to me again to say good-bye. There followed a moment when human strength was no longer of avail, and human deliberation the emptiest of words. The fatal situation developed. The delicately moulded woman succumbed to a sense of guilt; her heart grew irresponsive to feelings, her mind dark. She was stricken with the delusion that her child was slowly dying in her arms, and one day she collapsed completely. The rest is known.”

Benda got up, went over to the window, and looked out into the darkness.

Daniel felt as if a rope were being tightened about his neck. He too got up, murmured a farewell, and left.