United States or Guinea-Bissau ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The Frenchman told of the progress he was making in his Caspar Hauser research. In his broken German he told of the murder of body and soul that had been committed in the case of the foundling: “He was a mortal man comme une étoile,” he said. “The bourgeoisie crushed him. The bourgeoisie is the racine of all evil.” Daniel never mentioned Eleanore’s name.
Martha tried in vain to get her to stay: she was almost ill with longing. Martha let her go; she had the very saddest of thoughts concerning Eleanore’s future; for the unhappy incidents of that unhappy home had reached Martha’s sensitive ears. She did not worry because of moral principles; she was not that kind of a woman.
The doctor in Eschenbach, who had subscribed to the Fränkischer Herold, had read it one morning, and had given her the paper with considerable hesitation, calling her attention to the death notice. She was not present at the funeral. But she went out to the cemetery and prayed by Eleanore’s grave. She appreciated Daniel’s loss. When she met him he was precisely as she thought he would be.
He did not like her looks; he suspected her paleness and outward, enforced cheerfulness. “It is an undignified state of affairs, Eleanore,” he exclaimed, “we must make an end of it.” Make an end of it? Yes—but how? This was the thought that came at once to Eleanore’s mind. Every day the chain that bound her to him became stronger. Daniel was also tortured by the sight of Gertrude.
We have no desire to hear of Eleanore’s pangs of conscience and her longings, her flights, her waiting in burning suspense; to relate how she endeavoured to avert the inevitable to-day and succumbed to-morrow would be to tell an idle tale. It is best to overlook all these things; to draw a curtain of mercy before them; for they are so human and so wholly without a trace of the miraculous.
No, he had, aside from the two graves, a broken harp, some withered flowers, and a mask of terracotta. He looked at the dead stems and withered chalices: Eleanore’s fingers had once touched all of these. Her fingers were even then hovering over the dead buds like figures from the realm of spirits.
He sniffed around for a while, and then saw that the door to Eleanore’s room was open: her light was shining out on the stairs. When Daniel was not at home of an evening, Eleanore always kept her door open so that she could hear when he came in. Daniel was unaware of this; he had never seen the light on any previous night. He thought for a moment, then locked the door, and went up the stairs.
“I will go to the doctor, or I will call Benno and have him go,” said Jordan. “No, father, it is not necessary. Please go away!” He appreciated Eleanore’s impatience and obediently withdrew, shielding the light of the candle with his hand; his gigantic shadow followed along behind him like some unclassified animal. “Get up, Gertrude, get up and come with me!” said Eleanore.
There he was taken down with catalepsy; his face went through a horrible transformation: it came to look as if all the wickedness, hopelessness, and despair of the man who had never become reconciled to life through love had been concentrated in it and petrified. His forebodings had come true. Eleanore’s funeral took place on a rainy June day.
But he turned around: “I should like to know,” he asked in a tone of great grief, “who has been at Gertrude’s and Eleanore’s pictures. The one is covered with spots of blood, and the other has a hole punched in it. Isn’t that very strange? I can’t understand it: I can’t imagine who could have done me this injury.” He shook his head and went out.
Word Of The Day