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Eleanore, who had displayed a most curious disposition the whole morning, asked them to wait a minute. Before they could find out why she wished them to wait, the door bell rang, and she ran out. She returned with a radiant expression on her face; Marian Nothafft followed her. Marian composed herself only with extreme difficulty.
This lament came from Herr Kleinlein, who had been circuit judge now for some time. He was anxious to know whether all the tales that were circulating concerning Nothafft were true. Well, he was told, a great many things are said about Nothafft, but it is difficult to get at the truth.
He had thought they were completely forgotten by everybody. Her art was not merely perfect; it was wonderful. It was a very mysterious visit the singer paid him. One afternoon during a fearful snow storm the bell rang; and when Gertrude opened the door, she saw a woman wearing a heavy black veil standing before her, who said she wished to speak to Kapellmeister Nothafft.
He put down on the table three thousand taler in bank notes of the realm, and Jason Philip wrote out a receipt. Then he urged him to stay that night at his house. But Gottfried Nothafft said that he must return home to his wife and child, and that a single night in the noisy city had been enough for him. When they returned to the shop, they found Theresa sitting there.
When he reached the first barn of the village of Dautenwinden he saw a company of strolling musicians, who had played dance music the evening before and far into the night, and who were now shaking from their hair and garments the straw and chaff amid which they had slept. Above them, under the open gable of the barn, Daniel Nothafft was lying in the straw.
But when Herr Carovius heard that Eleanore Nothafft had died, he felt that his old friend had gone a bit too far. He was touched. He was seized with griping pains in the abdominal region, and locked himself up for the period of one whole day in his court room.
You act as though I had won that much money at the county fair, or had squandered an equal amount at the same place. The truth is, Gottfried Nothafft entrusted me with three thousand taler. That’s what he did; that’s the truth. It was his intention to keep the whole affair from the chatter of women.
This took place toward the end of the eighteen hundred and fifties, when the new power looms were being introduced from America. No toil profited anything. The cheap product which the machines could furnish destroyed the sale of the hand-made weaves. At first Gottfried Nothafft refused to be cast down. Thus the wheel of a machine will run on for a space after the power has been cut off.
And so the time came in which Daniel was to earn his own bread. Spindler journeyed to Eschenbach to confer with Marian Nothafft. The woman did not understand him. She felt tempted to laugh. Music had meant in her life the droning of a hurdy-gurdy, the singing of a club of men, the marching of a military band. Was her boy to wander from door to door and fiddle for pennies?
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.
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