Andreas Döderlein had recognised her talents when she was a mere child. Since her tenth year, she had been obliged to practise six hours every day. She had had a great number of different teachers, all of whom had been brought to the point of despair by her intractability. In the presence of her father, however, she was meek: to him she bowed.
Andreas Döderlein had recommended his daughter to the Baroness in words replete with objective recognition. The Baroness declared her willingness to play with Dorothea. Andreas Döderlein had said to her: “Now you have a chance to rise in the world through powerful influence; don’t neglect it! The Baroness loves the emotional; be emotional. At times she will demand the demoniac; be obedient. Like all rich people, she is pampering some grief de luxe; don’t disturb her!”
Dorothea was docile.
They were playing Beethoven’s spring sonatas, when the altercation began out in the vestibule. The maid came in and whispered something to her mistress. The Baroness arose and went to the door. Dorothea laid her violin in her lap, and looked around in affected astonishment, as though she were coming out of a dream.
At a sign from the Baroness the old servant gave Herr Carovius a free path. He went in: his face was red; he made a quite ridiculous bow. His eyes drank in the velvet portières, the cut glass mirrors, the crystal vases, and the bronze statuettes. In the meantime, and without fail, he had placed his right hand against his hip, giving the fine effect of right akimbo, and set one foot very elegantly a trifle more to the fore than the other: he looked like a provincial dancing-master.
He complained of the presumptuousness of the servants, and assured the Baroness that she was in complete enjoyment of his deference. He spoke of his good intentions and the pressure of circumstances. When the impatient bearing of his sole but distinguished auditor at last obliged him to come to the real purpose of his visit, the Baroness twitched; for from his flood of words there emerged, as she heard them, nothing but the name of her son.
With panting sounds she came up to Herr Carovius, and took him by the coat-sleeve. Her dim, black eyes became as round as little bullets; the supplicating expression in them was so much balm to the soul of her visitor.
Herr Carovius was enchanted; he was having the time of a scurvy life; he became impudent; he wanted to take vengeance on the mother against the son. He saw that the Baroness did not correspond to the picture he had made of a creature who belonged to the aristocracy. In his imagination she had lived as a domineering, imperious, inaccessible phenomenon: and now there stood before him an old, obese, worried woman. On this account he gave his voice a shriller tone, his face a more scurrilous expression than was his wont. Then he launched forth on a graphic narration of the unhappy plight in which he now found himself as a result of his association with Baron von Eberhard, Jr.
He claimed that it was nothing but his own good nature that had got him into this trouble. And yet, what was he to do? The Baron would have starved to death, or become morally depraved, if he had not come to his spiritual and pecuniary rescue, for the young man was sadly wanting in the powers of moral resistance. And what had he gained by all this altruism? Ingratitude, bitter ingratitude!
“He plundered me; he took my last cent, and then acted as if it were my damned duty to go through fire for his baronical excellency,” screamed Herr Carovius. “Before I came to know him I was a well-to-do man; I could enjoy myself; I could reap the higher pleasures of human existence. To-day I am ruined. My money is wasted, my house is burdened with mortgages, my peace of mind has gone plumb to the Devil. Two hundred and seventy-six thousand marks is what the young man owes me and my business friends. Yes—two hundred and seventy-six thousand marks, including interest and interest on the interest, all neatly noted down and signed up by the duly authorised parties. Am I to let him slam the door in my face because of his indebtedness to me? I think you will see yourself that that cannot be expected of me. He at least owes me a little respect for what I have done for him.”