That was precisely what Dorothea had been longing to hear; it confirmed her calculations and crowned her dreams. To hear these words roll from her uncle’s tongue had been her ambition; and she had spared no pains to arrive at her goal.
Herr Carovius was not spoiled. Since the days his sister had kept house for him, no woman had ever concerned herself about him in the least. But at that time he was young; and he had wheedled himself into believing that the women were merely waiting for him, that all he had to do was to beckon to them with his finger and they would come rushing up to him in battalions. But because he had dreaded the idea of making an unhappy selection, and by reason of the expense of the enterprise, he had neglected to give the necessary signal, and hence had been so generous as to leave them in complete possession of their freedom.
He never knew until now that the soft, little hand of a woman could bring out effects as if they had come from the touch of a magic wand. “What a pleasant little phiz Döderlein’s offspring has,” he thought. And if Dorothea, who had made him believe that she was visiting him on the sly, though her father had given his consent long ago, chanced to remain away for a few days, he would become wild with rage, and go into the kitchen and chop wood merely to enjoy the sensation of destroying something.
Moreover, the music lessons Dorothea was taking at Herr Carovius’s expense gave the girl a new conception of her art, and awakened in her a measure of wholesome ambition. Satisfied as he was with her docility and her progress, Herr Carovius referred to her at times as the coming female Paganini, and pictured himself in the rôle of a demoniacal impresario.
But the thing about Dorothea that struck him most forcibly and filled him with such astonishment was her relation to mirrors.
A mirror exercised a tremendous influence on her. If she passed by one, her face became coloured with a charming blush of desire; if she stood before one and saw her picture reflected in it, she was filled, first with sexual unrest, and then with retreating uncertainty. In the brightness of her eyes there was always a longing for the mirror. Her gait and her gestures seemed to have duties imposed on them by the mirror; it seemed to be their task to prepare surprises. Her whole body seemed to live in common with a spectral mirror sister, and to catch sight of this beloved sister was her first wish, fulfilment of which she effected as often as possible.
VIII
Dorothea had succeeded in making it clear to her father that it would be highly advantageous to her, as the nearest relative, to show Herr Carovius every conceivable favour. Andreas Döderlein baulked at first; but he could not refuse recognition to the far-seeing penetration of his daughter.
When she told him of her appearance in the baronial residence, and mentioned the enormous sum Herr Carovius had collected with the mien of an undaunted victor, Döderlein became serious; he stared into space and did some hard thinking. Recalling the now superannuated feud, he preserved the appearance of inapproachability, and said: “We will not debase ourselves for the sake of Mammon.”