IN MEMORY OF A DREAM FIGURE
I
One evening Daniel called on Benda to take leave of him for a long while.
Just as he was about to enter the front gate, he saw Herr Carovius’s dog standing there showing his teeth. The beast’s bloodshot eyes were fixed on a ten-year old girl who was likewise on the point of entering the house, but, afraid of the dog, she did not dare take another step. The animal had dragged his chain along behind him, and stood there now, snarling in a most vicious way.
Daniel took the child by the hand and led it back a few steps, after he had frightened the dog into silence by some rough commands. “Who are you?” he asked the girl.
“Dorothea Döderlein,” was the reply.
“Ah,” said Daniel. He could not help but laugh, for there was a comic tone of precociousness in the girl’s manner of speaking. But she was a very pretty child. A sly, smiling little face peeped out from under her hood, and her velvet mantle with great pearl buttons enshrouded a dainty figure.
“You should have been in bed long ago, Dorothea,” said Daniel. “What will the night watchman think when he comes along and finds you up? He will take you by the collar, and lead you off to jail.”
Dorothea told him why she was still up and why she was alone. She had been visiting a school friend, and the maid who called for her wanted to get a loaf of bread from the bakery before going up stairs. She related the story of her meeting with the dog with so much coquetry and detail that Daniel was delighted at the contrast between this rodomontade and the quaking anxiety in which he first found her.
“You are a fraud, Dorothea,” said Daniel, and called to mind the unpleasant sensation she aroused in him when he saw her for the first time years ago.