“Many years ago,” said Daniel, “you will scarcely recall it, I protected you here in this very same gateway from a big dog. Do you remember?”
“No! Or do I? Wait a minute! Yes, I remember, that is, quite indistinctly. You did that?” Dorothea seized his hands with gratitude.
“Fine! Then we will go walking to-morrow morning. Where? Oh, it doesn’t make much difference,” said Daniel.
“But you must tell me everything, you hear? everything.” Dorothea was as insistent as she had been in the room a short while ago; and she was more impetuous and impatient.
They agreed upon the place where they would meet.
XIV
At first they took short walks in remote parts of the city; then they took longer ones. On Mid-Summer Day they strolled out to Kraftshof and the grove of the Pegnitz shepherds. Daniel made unconscious effort to avoid the places where he had once walked with Eleanore.
There came moments when Dorothea’s exuberance made him pensive and sad; he felt the weight of his forty years; they were inclined to make him hypochondriacal. Was it the vengeance of fate that made him slow up when they came to a hill, while Dorothea ran on ahead and waited for him, laughing?
She did not see the flowers, the trees, the animals, or the clouds. But when she saw people a change came over her: she would become more active; or she would mobilise her resources; or she seemed to strike up a spiritual liaison with them. It might be only a peasant boy on an errand or a vagabond going nowhere; she would shake her hips and laugh one note higher.