ly she took to giving him ten pfennigs
when he came.

XII

It frequently happened that Daniel would not answer when any one asked
him a question. His ear lost the words, his eye the pictures, signs,
faces, gestures. He was in his own way; he was a torment to himself.

Something drew him there and then here. He would leave the house, and
then be taken with a longing to return. He noticed that people were
laughing at him; laughing at him behind his back. He read mockery in the
eyes of his pupils; the maids in the house tittered when he passed by.

What did they know? What were they concealing? Perhaps his soul could
have told what they knew and what they concealed; but he was unwilling
to drag it all out into the realm of known, nameable things.

As if an invisible slanderer were at his side, unwilling to leave him,
leave him in peace, his despair increased. "What have you done, Daniel!"
a voice within him cried, "what have you done!" The shades of the
sisters, arm in arm, arose before him.

The feeling of having made a mistake, a mistake that could never be
rectified, burned like fire within him. His work, so nearly completed,
had suddenly died away.

For the sake of his symphony, he forced himself into a quiet frame of
mind at night, made room for faint-hearted hopes, and lulled his
presentient soul into peace.

The thing that troubled him worst of all was the way Philippina looked
at him.

Since the birth of the child he had been living in Eleanore's room. Old
Jordan was consideration itself: he went around in his stocking feet so
as not to disturb him.

One night Daniel took the candle, and went downstairs to Dorothea's
room. She woke up, screamed, looked at him bewildered, recognised him,
became indignant, and then laughed mockingly and sensually.

He sat down on the side of her bed, and took her right hand between his
two. But he had a disagreeable sensation on feeling her hand in his, and
looked at her fingers. They were not finely formed: they were thicker at
the ends than in the middle; they could not remain quiet; they twitched
constantly.

"This can't keep up, Dorothea," he said in a kindly tone, "you are
ruining your own life and mine too. Why do you have all these people
around you? Is the pleasure you derive from associating with them so
great that it benumbs your conscience? I have no idea what you are
doing. Tell me about it. The household affairs are in a