His enraged eye fell on the table covered with pots, empty cups, and pastry. The chairs had been pushed to one side; the new gas chandelier with its five frosted globes was functioning at full force; there were seven or eight persons grouped around Dorothea, laughing and looking at something that had fallen on the floor.
Dorothea had pushed the white sash she had been wearing while playing blindfold back on her forehead. She was the first to see Daniel; she exclaimed: “There is my husband. Now don’t get angry, Daniel; it’s nothing but that idiotic plaster mask.”
Councillor Finkeldey, a white-bearded man, nodded at Daniel, or at least at the spot where he was standing, with marked enthusiasm. It was his way of paying homage to Dorothea: everything she said he accompanied with an inspired nod of approval.
Daniel saw that the mask of Zingarella had been broken to pieces.
Without greeting a single person present, without even looking at a single one of them, he stepped into the circle, knelt down, and tried to put the broken pieces of the mask together. But there were too many small shreds. The nose, the chin, parts of the glorious forehead, a piece with the mouth arched in sorrow, another piece of the cheek—there were too many; they could not be put together.
He hurled the fragments to one side, and straightened up. “Philippina! The broom!” His command was given in a loud tone. And when Philippina came in with the broom, he added: “Sweep the dirt up on a pile, and then throw it in the garbage can.”
Philippina swept up, while Daniel, as silent and unsocial on going as he had been on coming, left the room.
Frau Feistelmann made an indignant face, Edward Hahn breathed through his nose, Herr Samuelsky, a fat man with a red beard, made a contemptuous remark, Dorothea, vexed and annoyed, stood and looked on while the tears took their unrestrained course.
Benda had been waiting down at the front door. “She has broken my mask,” said Daniel with a distorted smile, as he came down to his old friend, “the mask you gave me. You remember! Strange that it should have been broken to-day of all days, the very day you come to see me after so long a separation.”
“Possibly it can be glued together again,” said Benda, trying to console Daniel.