He longed to talk with some one who loved Daniel and who had followed his career with pure motives. He had to think for a long while: where was there such a person? He thought of old Herold and went to him. He directed the conversation without digression to a point that was of prime importance to him. And in order to put the old man in as confidential a frame of mind as possible, he reminded him of a night when the three of them, Daniel, Herold, and Benda, had sat in the Mohren Cellar drinking wine and discussing things in general, important and unimportant, that have a direct bearing on life.
The old man nodded; he recalled the evening. He spoke of Daniel’s genius with a modesty and a deference that made Benda’s heart swell. He raised his finger, and said with a fine fire in his eye: “I’ll stand good for him. I prophesy on the word of the Bible: A star will rise from Jacob.”
Then he spoke of Eleanore; he was passionately fond of her. He told how she had brought him the quartette, and how she had glowed with inspiration and the desire to help. He also had a good deal to say about Gertrude, especially with regard to her mental breakdown and her death.
Benda left the old man at once quiet and disquieted. He walked along the street for a long while, rapt in thought. When he looked up he saw that he was standing before Daniel’s house. He went in.
XIV
Daniel knew that Benda had returned: Philippina had read it in the newspaper and told him about it. Dorothea, who had learned of his return from her father, had also spoken to him about it. He had also heard other people speak of it.
The first time he heard it he was startled. He felt he would have to flee to his friend of former days. Then he was seized with the same fear that had come over Benda: Is our relation to each other the same? The thought of meeting Benda filled him with a sense of shame, to which was added a touch of bitterness as day after day passed by and Benda never called or wrote. “It is all over,” he thought, “he has forgotten me.” He would have liked to forget too; and he could have done it, for his mind was wandering, restless, strayed.
One evening as he crossed the square he noticed that the windows of his house were all brilliantly lighted. He went to the kitchen, where he found Agnes at the table seeding plums.
“Who is here again?” he asked. One could hear laughter, loud and boisterous, in the living room.
Agnes, scarcely looking up, reeled off the names: Councillor Finkeldey, Herr von Ginsterberg, Herr Samuelsky, Herr Hahn, a strange man whose name she did not know, Frau Feistelmann and her sister.