She appreciated Daniel’s loss. When she met him he was precisely as she thought he would be. She recognised her son in his great grief and mute despair: he was nearer to her then than at any other time of his life. She honoured his grief; she did not need to decrease it or divert it. She was silent, just as Daniel himself was silent. All she did was to lay her hand on his forehead occasionally. He murmured: “Mother, oh Mother!” She replied: “Now don’t! Don’t think of me!”
She said to herself: “When an Eleanore dies in the full bloom of youth, one must mourn until the soul of its own accord again grows hungry for life.”
At first Eva had tried to play with her little step-sister; but Philippina had chased her from the room. Once she turned against the enraged daughter of Jason Philip Schimmelweis, and said: “I’ll tell my father on you!”
“Yes? You’ll tell your father? Well, tell him! Who cares?” replied Philippina scornfully. “But who is your father? What is he? Where is he? In Pomerania perhaps?” Whereupon she added in a sing-song voice: “Pomerania is burnt to the ground. Fly, cockchafer, fly!”
“My father? He’s in the room there,” replied Eva surprised and offended: “I am in his house, and little Agnes is my sister.”
Philippina tore open her eyes and her mouth: “Your father—is in the room—” she stammered, “and little Agnes—is your sister?” She got up, seized Eva by the shoulders, and dragged her across the floor into the room where Daniel and Marian were sitting. With an outburst of laughter that sounded as though she were not quite in her right mind, and with an expression of impudence and rage on her face, she panted forth her indignation in the following terms: “This brat says Daniel is her father and Agnes is her sister! A scurvy chit—I’ll say!”
Marian, terrified, sprang to her feet, ran over to Eva, and began to scream: “Let her go, take your hands off that child!” Eva was pale, the tears were rolling down her cheeks, her little arms were stretched out as if in urgent need of help from an older hand. Philippina let go of her and stepped back. “Is it really true?” she whispered, “is it really true?” Marian knelt down and picked up her foster child: “Now you mind your own business, you rogue,” she said to Philippina.
“Daniel?” Philippina turned to Daniel with uplifted arms, and repeated, “Daniel?” She seemed to be challenging him to speak; and to be reproaching him for having deceived her. There was something quite uncanny about the way she said, “Daniel? Daniel?”
“You go back and mind Agnes!” said Daniel, worried as he had never been before: he felt more than ever under obligations to Philippina. And what could he do now without her? She was the sole guardian of his child. His mother could not remain in the city; she had to make her living, and that she could do only over in Eschenbach. Her business was located there; and there Eva was growing up in peace and happiness. On the other hand, he did not feel that it would be possible or advisable to take Agnes away from Philippina, even if his mother saw fit to adopt her too. Philippina was attached to the child with an ape-like affection. And more than this: Who would take care of old Jordan if Philippina were discharged? Daniel could not make his bed or get his meals.