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On the square of the grain merchants in Nuremberg, Jason Philip Schimmelweis, the husband of Marian’s sister, had his bookbinder’s shop. Schimmelweis was a Westphalian. Hatred against the junkers and the priests had driven him to this Protestant city of the South, where from the beginning he had acquired the respect of people through his ready wit and speech.
But they are as inevitable in their character and sequence as the sparks and smoke that follow upon fire. They are quite determinable; they have often happened, and have always had the same final effect. What clung to Marian’s soul was an immemorial prejudice against a gipsy’s life and a stroller’s fate.
If it was peculiar that this strange woman had to come to her to tell her who Daniel was and what he meant to the people, it was wholly inexplicable that she had brought some one with her who had been the sweetheart of the very man for whom she now showed unreserved affection. Eleanore read Marian’s face and became a trifle more deliberate.
Jason Philip and Theresa had come to the funeral, and stayed for three days. An examination of her inheritance showed, to Marian’s consternation, that there were not twenty taler in the house, and what she saw ahead of her was a life of wretchedness and want.
When Jason Philip Schimmelweis learned what was afoot, he would not let the troublesome journey deter him, but appeared in Marian’s shop like an avenging angel. Daniel feared him no longer, since he had given up hoping for anything from him. He laughed to himself at the sight of the stubby, short-necked man in his rage.
A woman with a stern face and unusually large eyebrows asked her what she wanted as she entered the little shop, which smelled of vinegar and cheese. Eleanore replied that she would like to talk with her for a few minutes quite undisturbed and alone. The profound seriousness of Marian’s features, which resembled more than anything else an incurable suffering, did not disappear.
We’ll be late!” his wife called out to him. He turned a sinister face to Marian. “You’re bringing up a fine product, I must say. You’ll have your own troubles with him.” Marian’s eyes fell. She was not unprepared for the reproach. She was herself frightened at the boy’s savage obduracy, his self-centred insistence on his imaginings, his hardness and impatience and contempt of all restraint.
Marian paid not the slightest attention to any of them; she went quietly and slowly back to her house. Thus it came about that five weeks later a daughter of Daniel Nothafft saw the light of the world under Marian’s roof. As soon as the child was born, Marian took a great liking to it, despite the fact that she had thought of it before its birth only with aversion.
She closed the shop and took Eleanore into the living room, and, without saying a word, pointed to one chair and took another herself. Above the leather sofa hung the picture of Gottfried Nothafft. Eleanore looked at it for a long while. “Dear mother,” she finally began, laying her hand on Marian’s knee. “I am bringing you something from Daniel.” Marian twitched. “Good or bad?” she asked.
She held firmly an almost religious doctrine of the complete obedience which children owe their parents, and doubted Marian’s power to punish properly a breach of this sacred law. When Marian was left alone, she sat down by the window of the little room, and gazed sadly down at the river. Without any curl of waves the yellow water glided by and washed the walls of the houses on the other bank.
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