The Goose Man
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: "Vineta" had aroused Wurzelmann's
profound admiration; he had read the score on the side: "A great talent,
Doctor, a talent such as we have not had for a long, long while," said
Wurzelmann.
"Yes, but what am I to say about Herr Doermaul's opinion?" asked Benda.
He found it difficult to trust the man before him, and was using the
judgment of the man behind him as a foil.
"Don't you know Doermaul? I thought you did. Whenever he has no authority
to fear he becomes very bold. Lay the Ninth Symphony before him without
Beethoven's name to it, and he will tell you at once that it is rubbish.
Do you want to bet?"
"Honestly?" asked Benda, somewhat concerned.
"Give me the score, and I'll promise you to arouse the least sensitive
from their lethargy with it. With a work of that kind you have got to
blow the trumpet."
Benda thought it over. He had no use for trumpet-blowing, and no
confidence in those who did the blowing. And yet he consented, for he
did not feel justified in arbitrarily depriving Daniel of a chance.
It turned out that Wurzelmann had told the truth. A fortnight later
Daniel was informed that the Orchestral Union had decided to perform his
work in February. In order to provide its hearers with a more elaborate
picture of his creative ability, the Union asked him for a second work.
His compositions were perfect; others needed revision.
Wurzelmann boasted of having won his way to the seats of the mighty. He
had the cordial approval of such professors of music as Wackerbarth and
Herold. His masterpiece of diplomacy lay in the fact that he had secured
Andreas Doederlein as director of the orchestra.
His store of suggestions was inexhaustible, his plans without number. He
mentioned the fact that when the company was on the road they would have
to have a second Kapellmeister, since he himself would have to function
at times as substitute director: "Leave it all to me, dear Nothafft," he
said, "Alexander Doermaul has got to dance to my tune, and my tune is
this: It is Nothafft or nobody for Kapellmeister."
If he began with humility, he concluded with familiarity. Daniel hated
red-headed people, particularly when they had inflamed eyes and
slobbered when they spoke.
"He is an unappetising fellow, your Wurzelmann," he said to Benda, "and
it is embarrassing to me to be indebted to him. He imagines he flatters
me when he speaks contemptibly of himself. What he deserves is a kick or
two."
Benda was silent. Touched by Wurzelmann's devoted efforts, he had called
him _servule_, or the "little slave." It was pleasant to think that
there was some one to remove the stumbling blocks from the road, so that
the feet of him who had risen from obscurity might find a place to walk.
But the little slave was filled with the admiration of the Jew, born in
poverty and oppression, for the genius of the other race.
Benda knew this. He was uneasy at the thought of it; for other and no
less disingenuous fanatics regarded Wurzelmann's behaviour merely as a
racial peculiarity.
X
Summer with its hot August days had come. The two friends took frequent
walks out to the suburbs, strolling through the forests of Feucht and
Fischbach, or climbing the high hills about the city.
Eleanore joined them on one of these excursions. It was a joy to see her
drink in the fragrance of the flowers and the fir trees or study the
various cloud formations and the alternating scenes of the landscape.
When she did this she was like a bird gliding along on noiseless wing in
the upper regions, far removed from the grime of the earth, bathing in
the undefiled air of the clouds.
She listened to the conversation of the friends with intelligent
attention. A piercing glance or a wrinkle of the brow showed that she
was taking sides, and accepting or rejecting in her own mind the views
that were being set forth. If she was moved to express an opinion of her
own, she generally hit the nail on the head.
As they were returning home, night set in. The sky was clear; the stars
were shining. There were a great number of falling stars. Eleanore
remarked that she really did not have as many wishes as she could
express under these circumstances. The erudite Benda replied with a
smile that in these August nights there were frequently so many groups
of asteroids that the whole firmament seemed to be in motion, and that
one could easily grow tired of so many wishes.
Eleanore wanted to know what an asteroid was. Benda explained it to her
as well as he could. Then he told her all about constellations and the
milky way, and explained to her that the latter consists of millions of
individual stars. He also spoke of the size of the stars; and since he
referred to them occasionally as suns and worlds, she became somewhat
sceptical, and asked him whether there were any earths among the stars.
"Earths? What do you mean by earths?" he asked. "Why, earths, just like
the one we live on," she replied. Having been told that there were
earths among the stars, Eleanore raised a number of rather cleverly
framed questions about the trees and animals and people that might be
found on these other earths. She was told that it was highly probable
that they were all inhabited about as our own: "Why should this globe
enjoy special privileges?" he asked. He added, however, that even if the
inhabitants of the other earths did not have the same mental faculties
that we have, they were at least beings endowed with reason and
instinct.
"Do you mean to tell me that such people as you and Daniel and I may be
living up there in those starry regions?"
"Certainly."
"And that there are countless peoples and humanities up among the stars
of whom we know nothing at all?"
"Certainly."
Eleanore sat down on a milestone by the roadside, gazed out into space
with trembling lips, and broke out crying. Benda took her hand, and
caressed it.
"I am awfully sorry for all those peoples up there," Eleanore sobbed,
looked up, smiled, and let the tears take their course. Benda would have
liked to take Daniel by the arm, and shout into his ear: "Look at her
now!" Daniel was looking at her, but he did not see her.
XI
One evening in October, Inspector Jordan left his house in Broad Street,
buttoned his top coat more closely about him, and walked hastily through
a connecting alley that was so narrow that it seemed as if some one had
taken a big knife and cut the houses in two. His goal was Carolina
Street. It was late, and he was hungry. Doubting whether Gertrude would
have a warm supper ready for him, he went to an inn.
He had spent two full hours there trying to get a rich hops dealer to
take out some insurance. The man had him explain over and over again the
advantages of insurance, studied the tables backwards and forwards, and
yet he was unable to come to a decision. Then the waiter brought him his
dinner. There he sat, smacking his lips with the noise of human
contentment, his great white napkin tied under his chin in such a
fashion that the two corners of it stuck out on either side of his
massive head, giving the appearance of two white ears. He had offended
Jordan's social instincts: he had not thought it worth while to wait for
an invitation.
Among other guests in the inn was Bonengel, the barber. He recognised
Jordan and spoke to him. He took a seat in the background, picked out
the ugliest and greasiest of the waitresses, and ordered a bulky portion
of sausage and sauerkraut.
He told lascivious anecdotes. When the waitress brought him his food,
she tittered, and said: "He is a jolly good fellow, Bonengel is."
Jordan began to eat rapidly, but soon lost his appetite, pushed his
plate to one side, propped his chin on his hands, and stared at the
immobile clouds of tobacco smoke before him.
He had a feeling that it was no longer possible to keep at this work day
after day, year in and year out. Running from one end of the city to the
other, up and down the same stairs, through the same old streets--he
could not do it. Answering the same questions, making the same
assertions, refuting the same objections, praising the same plan in the
same words, feigning the same interest and quieting the same distrust
day after day--no, he could not do it. Disturbing the same people in
their domestic peace, prodding himself on to new effort every morning,
listening to the same curtain lectures of that monster of monsters, the
insatiate stock market, and standing up under the commands of his chief,
Alfons Diruf--no, he was no longer equal to it. It was all contrary to
the dignity of a man of his years.
He was ashamed of himself; and he was fearfully tired.
He thought of his past life. He recalled how he had risen from poverty,
and worked up to the position of a highly respected merchant. That was
when he was in Ulm. There he had married Agnes, the blond daughter of
the railroad engineer.
But why had he never become rich? Other men who were distinctly inferior
to him in shrewdness, diligence, and polish were now wealthy; he was
poor. Three times he had been threatened with bankruptcy, and three
times friends had come to his rescue. Then a partner joined him,
invested some capital in the firm, and the business was once more on its
feet.
But it turned out that this partner was a stranger to loyalty and quite
without conscience. "Jordan is a drag on the business," he would say to
his customers, "Jordan is stupid, Jordan cannot make a calculation." And