Chapter 7

“Wait for me at the fountain,” said Eleanore to her companion, as she crossed the market place in Eschenbach at midday: “I’ll call for you as soon as everything has been discussed.”

The coachman pointed out the little house of the widow Nothafft.

A woman with a stern face and unusually large eyebrows asked her what she wanted as she entered the little shop, which smelled of vinegar and cheese.

Eleanore replied that she would like to talk with her for a few minutes quite undisturbed and alone.

The profound seriousness of Marian’s features, which resembled more than anything else an incurable suffering, did not disappear. She closed the shop and took Eleanore into the living room, and, without saying a word, pointed to one chair and took another herself.

Above the leather sofa hung the picture of Gottfried Nothafft. Eleanore looked at it for a long while.

“Dear mother,” she finally began, laying her hand on Marian’s knee. “I am bringing you something from Daniel.”

Marian twitched. “Good or bad?” she asked. She had not heard from Daniel for twenty-two months. “Who are you?” she asked, “what have you to do with him?”

Eleanore saw at once that she would have to be extremely cautious if she did not wish to offend the sensitive—and offended—woman by some inconsiderate remark. With all the discrimination she could command she laid her case before Daniel’s mother.

And behold—the unusual became usual, just as the natural seemed strange. Eleanore pictured Daniel’s hardships and rise to fame, boasted loyally of his talents and of the enthusiasm for him of those who believed in him, referred to his future renown, and insisted that all his guilt, including that toward his mother, be forgotten and forgiven.

Marian reviewed the past; she understood a great many things now that were not clear to her years ago; she understood Daniel better; she understood virtually everything, except this girl’s relation to him and the girl herself. If it was peculiar that this strange woman had to come to her to tell her who Daniel was and what he meant to the people, it was wholly inexplicable that she had brought some one with her who had been the sweetheart of the very man for whom she now showed unreserved affection.

Eleanore read Marian’s face and became a trifle more deliberate. It occurred to her, too, to ask herself a few questions: What am I, any way? What is the matter with me?

She could not give a satisfactory answer to these questions. His friend? He my friend? The words seemed to contain too much peace and calm. Brother? Companion? Either of these words brought up pictures of intimate association, inner relationship. Little Brother! Yes, that is what she had called out to him once from behind the mask. Well then: Little sister behind the mask?

Yes, that was what it should be: Little sister behind the mask. She had to have a hiding place for so many things of which she had only a vague presentiment and which in truth she did not care to visualise in brighter outlines. A subdued heart, a captured heart—it glows, it cools off, you lift it up, you weigh it down just as fate decrees. To be patient, not to betray anything, that was the all-important point: Little sister behind the mask—that was the idea.

Marian said: “My child, God himself has inspired you with the idea of coming to me and telling me about Daniel. I will put fresh flowers in the window as I did some time ago, and I will leave the front door open so that the swallows can fly in and build their nests. Perhaps he will think then from time to time of his mother.”

Then she asked to see Meta. Eleanore went out, and returned in a few minutes with her charge. Marian looked at the pregnant girl compassionately. Meta was ill at ease; to every question that was put to her she made an incoherent reply. She could stay with her, said Marian, but she would have to work, for there was no other way for the two to live. The girl referred to the fact that she had already worked out for four years, and that no one had ever accused her of lack of industry or willingness. Thereupon Marian told her she would have to be very quiet, that the people in the neighbourhood were very curious, and that if she ever gave them her family history she would have to leave.

This attended to, Eleanore went on her way. She refused quite emphatically to stay for dinner. Marian thought that she was in a hurry to catch the next coach, and accompanied her across the square. They promised to write to each other; before Eleanore got into the rickety old coach, Marian kissed her on the cheek.

She watched the coach until it had passed out through the city gate. A drunken man poked her in the ribs, the blacksmith called to her as she passed by, the doctor’s wife leaned out of the window and asked her who the cityfied lady was. Marian paid not the slightest attention to any of them; she went quietly and slowly back to her house.