M. Rivière loved to hear Daniel improvise on the piano. He knew so little German that he merely smiled at Daniel's caustic remarks; and if he became violently enraged, M. Rivière merely stared at his mouth. He had a wart on his cheek, and wore a straw hat summer and winter. He cooked his own meals, for it was an obsession of his that people wanted to poison him because he was writing a life of Caspar Hauser.
When Herr Seelenfromm and M. Rivière came in of a Sunday evening, Daniel would reach for a volume of E. T. A. Hoffmann or Clemens Brentano, and read from them until he was hoarse. He tried in this way to find peace in a strange world; for he did not wish to weep at the sight of human beings who seemed perfectly at ease.
Gertrude looked at him, and put this question to herself: How is it that a man to whom music is life and the paradise of his heart can allow himself to be so enveloped in sorrow, so beclouded by gloom? She understood the smarting pains in which he composed; she had a vague idea of the labyrinthine complications of his inner fate; these she grasped. But her own soul was filled with joyless compassion; she wished with all her power to plant greater faith and more happiness in his heart.
She meditated on the best means of carrying on her spiritual campaign. It occurred to her that he had had more of both faith and happiness at the time he was going with Eleanore. She saw Eleanore now in a quite different light. She recalled that Eleanore was not merely her sister but the creator of her happiness. Nor was she unmindful of the fact that through the transformation of her being, love and enlightenment had arisen to take the place of her former suspicion and ignorance.
She ascribed to Eleanore all those powers in which she had formerly been lacking: general superiority and stimulating vigour; an ability to play that lent charm to drudgery and made the hard things of life easy; brightness in conversation and delicacy of touch. In her lonely broodings she came to the conclusion that Eleanore was the only one who could help her. She went straightway to her father's house to find out why Eleanore so rarely came to see her.
"I don't like to come; Daniel is so unkind to me," said Eleanore.