The clouds hung low, causing premature darkness. Lamps were lighted, and their odour mingled freely with the other odours of this overcrowded room. A few village musicians played some unknown piece; the eyes of the workingman's children shone with delight. Because they sat there so quietly--and because they looked so pale--Eleanore gave each of the children a sandwich. The mother was very grateful, and said so. The father, who said he was the foreman in a mirror factory, began to talk with Daniel about the troubles of the present era.
All of a sudden Daniel caught sight of a familiar face at a nearby table. As it turned to one side, he saw in the dim, smelly light another face he knew, and then a third and a fourth. It was all so ghost-like in the room that it was some time before he knew just where to place them. Then it occurred to him where they came from.
Herr Hadebusch and Frau Hadebusch, Herr Francke and Benjamin Dorn were having a little Sunday outing. The brush-maker's wife was radiant with joy on seeing her old lodger. She nodded, she blinked, she folded her hands as if touched at the sight, and Herr Hadebusch raised his beer glass, eager to drink a toast to Daniel's health.
They could not quite make out who Eleanore was; they took her for Daniel's wife. This misunderstanding, it seemed, was then cleared up by the Methodist after he had craned his neck and called his powers of recognition into play. The demoniac woman nodded, to be sure, and kept on blinking, but in her face there was an expression of rustic disapproval. Her mouth was opened, and the tusks of her upper jaw shone forth uncannily from the black abyss.
The swan neck of the Methodist was screwed up so hardily and picturesquely above the heads of the others that Eleanore could not help but notice his physical and spiritual peculiarities. She wrinkled her brow, and looked at Daniel questioningly.
She looked around, and saw a great many people from the city whom she knew either by name or from having met them so frequently. There was a saleswoman from Ludwig Street; a clerk with a pock-marked face from a produce store; the dignified preceptress of a Kindergarten; an official of the savings bank; the hat-maker from the corner of the Market Place with his grown daughter; and the sergeant who invariably saluted when he passed by her.