Herr Carovius pulled at his moustaches, moved his eyebrows up and down, went to his writing desk, opened his strong box, took out a hundred-mark bill, and gave it to her with turned head, as if he were afraid of the wrath of the protecting spirit of the money chest.
This was the state of affairs when Daniel met the youthful Dorothea in Herr Carovius’s home, and went away with an unforgettable, unextinguishable picture of her in his soul.
XIII
Daniel’s approaching fortieth birthday seemed like a sombre portal leading to the realm of spent ambition. “Seize what remains to be seized,” a voice within him cried. “Grass is growing on the graves.”
His senses were at war with his intellect and his heart. He had never looked on women as he was looking on them now.
One day he went out to Siegmundshof. Eberhard was not at home. Sylvia’s face showed traces of subdued sadness. She had three children, each one more beautiful than the other, but when her eyes rested on them her heart was filled with grief. Women whose married life is unhappy have dull, lifeless features; their hands are transparent and yellow.
Daniel took leave more quickly than he had wished or intended. He felt an egoistic aversion to the joyless sons of man.
He went to see Herr Carovius. The laughing one whom he sought was not at home.
Herr Carovius looked at him at times distrustfully. The face of his former foe set him to thinking. It was furrowed like a field under cultivation and burnt like a hearthstone. It was the face of a criminal, crabbed, enervated, tense, and breathed upon, it seemed, by threatening clouds. Herr Carovius was a connoisseur of faces.
In order to avoid the discomfort of fatuous conversation, Daniel played a number of old motetts for Herr Carovius. Herr Carovius was so pleased that he ran into his pantry, and got a half dozen Boxdorf apples and put them in Daniel’s pockets. He bought these apples every autumn by the peck, and cherished them as so many priceless treasures.