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Consequently, he hurried out to the Füll, stood under Benda’s window, and called Benda’s name. The clocks struck three. The blinds were soon drawn to one side, and Benda’s stoutish figure appeared at the open window. “Daniel? Is it you? What’s up?” “Nothing. I merely wanted to bring you New Year’s greetings.” “Do you think you are bringing me something good? Go home and go to bed.”
“What is there to do?” asked Daniel, expressing Benda’s silent thought in audible words, and looking askew, as he walked back and forth, at the stranger who went slowly through the room over to the window in the corner. “What can human fancy find reasonable or possible after all that has happened? Nothing! Merely pine away; pine away in insanity.”
It was, however, at times impossible for him to prevent his smarting and his desire to put an end to his ineffectual existence from breaking through the coating of reserve in which he had encased himself. Late in the afternoon of a dismal day, Benda called for Daniel just as he was finishing one of his piano lessons. The two friends decided to take a walk and then dine together at Benda’s.
Daniel, however, had never received it, and the investigations which he made proved fruitless. Benda’s mother was not in the city; she was living with relatives in Worms, but had kept her apartment at Herr Carovius’s. Frau von Auffenberg was at Bad Ems, and did not plan to return until September. Daniel looked up old friends, and rebound the ties of former days.
Probably he had accustomed himself to the belief that Benda’s life was orderly and agreeable. The plebeian prosperity of the family in which he himself lived probably made him feel that that was the way his friend was living. At all events he never asked any questions, and was never once struck by the fact that Benda would sit before him for hours with his face wrapped in bitter, melancholy gloom.
“Take dinner with us this evening, Eleanore,” said Gertrude, looking rather uncertainly at Daniel. “If it is agreeable to Daniel....” “No nonsense, Eleanore, of course it is agreeable to me,” said Daniel. A quarter of an hour later Daniel was sitting by the lamp reading Benda’s letter.
The workmen were coming from the suburbs, and in their tired faces he felt that he recognised his own world. “Oh,” he sighed, “I should like to get nearer the stars, to make the acquaintance of more dependable hearts, of hearts that are truer even than my own.” Just then he looked up at Benda’s window, and saw his light. He was ashamed of himself.
It was the uncanny energy of expression that prevented his singing from having a comic effect. Benda’s eyes were so strained in the effort to listen intelligently and appreciatively that they became dazed, glazed. Had he been asked he could not have said whether the work was a success or a failure.
Daniel called for them after the concert. Eleanore told him on the way home that she had received a letter for him that afternoon bearing a London stamp. “From Benda?” asked Daniel quickly. “It is Benda’s handwriting,” replied Eleanore. “I was going to bring it to you when Gertrude called for me. Wait out in the front of the house, and I’ll go in and get it.”
Those are places that have never been trod upon by European feet. There is where I am going.” He smiled a gentle smile. “Really? When?” asked Daniel, filled with dismay at the thought of losing his friend. “I have not decided when, but it will be soon. I have work to do over there. I need air, room, sky, the free animal and the free plant.” Benda’s mother came in.
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