the man and the
magnetism that radiated from the man. The work itself he could neither
fathom nor evaluate. It took hold of him nevertheless because of its
inseparable association with the human phenomenon.

Daniel got up, stumbled over to the sofa, buried his face in his hands,
and sighed: "Do you feel it? Do you really feel it?" He then rose,
lunged at the piano, seized the score, and hurled it to the floor: "Ah,
it's no account; it is nothing; it is an abominable botch."

He threw himself on the sofa a second time. Eleanore, sitting perfectly
motionless in the other corner, looked at him with the eyes of an
astonished child.

Benda had gone to the window, and was looking out into the trees and the
grey clouds of the sky. Then he turned around. "That something must be
done for you and your cause is clear," he said.

Eleanore stretched out her arms toward Benda as though she wished to
thank him. Her lips began to move. But when she saw Daniel she did not
dare to say a word, until she suddenly exclaimed: "Heavens, there are
two buttons on his vest which are hanging by a thread." She ran out of
the room. In a few moments she returned with needle and thread, which
she had had Meta give her, sat down at Daniel's side, and sewed the
buttons on.

Benda had to laugh. But what she did had a tranquilising effect; she
seemed to enable life to win the victory over the insidious pranks of
apparitions.

IX

In years gone by, Benda had known the theatrical manager and impresario
Doermaul. He went to Doermaul now, and took Daniel's new work along with
him; for the versatile parvenu, who always had a number of irons in the
fire, also published music.

A few weeks elapsed before Benda heard from Doermaul: "Incomprehensible
stuff! Crazy attempt to be original! You couldn't coax a dog away from
the stove with it." Such was Doermaul's opinion.

A young man with fiery red hair followed Benda to the door and spoke to
him. He said his name was Wurzelmann and that he was a musician himself;
that he had attended the Vienna Conservatory, where his teacher had
given him a letter of recommendation to Alexander Doermaul. He also told
Benda that Doermaul was planning to form an opera company that would
visit the smaller cities of the provinces, and that he was to be the
Kapellmeister.

He spoke in the detestable idiom of the Oriental Jew. Benda was politely
cold.

The main point was still to come: