“Who is the child? To whom does it belong?” asked Daniel.
“It is your own child, Daniel,” said his mother.
“My own child! Yes, for heaven’s sakes—!” He blushed, turned pale, looked first at his mother, and then at Eleanore.
“It is your own flesh and blood. Don’t you ever think of Meta any more?”
“Of Meta.... Oh, I see. And you, you adopted the child? And you, Eleanore, knew all about this? And you, Mother, took the child?” He sat down at the table, and covered his face with his hands. “That was what Eleanore had in mind?” he murmured timidly to himself. “And I presume that to make the story complete the child’s name is Eva ...?”
“Yes, Eva,” whispered Eleanore, touched by the situation. “Go to your father, Eva, and shake hands with him.”
The child did as it had been told. Then Marian related to her son how Eleanore had brought the child to Eschenbach, and how Meta had married and gone to America with her husband.
Every look, every movement on the part of Marian showed how great her love for the child was: she guarded it as the apple of her eye.
The circle of wonderful events closed in around Daniel’s heart. Where responsibility lay and where guilt, where will power ended and fate began, Daniel could not say. To express gratitude would be vulgar; to conceal his emotions was difficult. He was ashamed of himself in the presence of both of the women. But when he looked at the living creature, his shame lost all meaning. And how exalted Eleanore appeared in his eyes just then! She seemed to him equally amiable and worthy of respect, whether he regarded her as an active or as a sentient, feeling woman. He almost shuddered at the thought that she was so near him; that what she had done had been done for him filled him with humility.
The strangest of all, however, was little Eva herself. He could not see enough of her; he was amazed at the trick nature had played: a human being of the noblest mien and form had been born of a gawky, uncouth servant girl. There was something divinely graceful and airy about the child. She had well-formed hands, delicate wrists, shapely ankles, and a clear, transparent forehead, on which a network of bluish veins spread out in various directions. Her laughter was the purest of music; and in her walk and gestures in general there was a rhythm which promised much for her future poise and winsomeness.