The Goose Man
eloquence. He insisted that his hands were clean, his left one and also
his right one; that he was working in the interest of a good cause; and
that threats could not intimidate him. He made it plain that he would
bow to no dictatorship operating under the mask of equality and
fraternity. He cried out that if the people wanted a scandal they could
have it, but they would find him armed to the teeth. And he assured them
that wherever he went in this wide, wide world, he would find the doors
open to welcome him.
He then made a sudden about-face, and left his comrades standing. On the
way home he continued to murmur murmurs of embitterment to himself.
Like a seasoned sailor eager to escape the storms of a raging sea, he
steered his good ship toward other and more hospitable shores. Three
days later he went to Baron Siegmund von Auffenberg, the leader of the
Liberals, and offered him his services. He told him that he was willing
to make any sacrifice for the great Liberal Party.
V
For thirty-five minutes, by his own watch, he cooled his heels in the
ante-chamber. He made one caustic remark after another touching on the
arrested development of the feeling of equality among the rich. Genuine
rebel that he was, he did not repudiate himself even when he was
practising high treason.
When he was finally taken into the office, he was not blinded in the
slightest by the luxuriousness of the furniture, the rugs, or the oil
paintings. He displayed not the remotest shimmer of servility on
meeting the illustrious Baron. He sat down on one of the chairs with
complete equanimity, took no notice of the French-speaking parrot, and
never cast a single glance at the breakfast table covered with
appetising tid-bits. But he did present his case with all due
straightforwardness and simplicity.
"Fine," said the Baron, "fine! I hardly believe that you will find it
necessary to make a radical change in your battlefront. A conscienceless
agitator you have never been. You have a family, a home of your own;
your affairs are in good condition; and in the bottom of your heart you
love order and discipline. I have in truth been expecting you for a long
while. Nor am I exaggerating when I confess to you that you had to bolt,
sooner or later."
Jason Philip blushed with satisfaction. With the bearing of a cabman who
has just pocketed his tip, he replied: "I thank you very much, Baron."
"On one point we are wholly agreed," said the Baron, "and it seems to me
to be the most important--"
"Quite right," interrupted Jason Philip, "you allude to the fight
against Bismarck. Yes, on this point we are, I hope, of precisely the
same opinion. I will do my part. Hand and heart on it, Baron. I could
look with perfectly cold blood on this knight of obscurantism writhing
on the rack."
Herr von Auffenberg heard this temperamental statement with noticeably
tenuous reassurance. He smiled just a little, and then said: "Wait a
minute, my friend, don't be quite so savage." He reached for his
smelling salts, held them to his nose, and closed his eyes. Then he got
up, folded his hands across his back, and walked up and down the room a
few times.
What he said after this was as familiar to him as the letters of the
alphabet. While Jason Philip gaped at his lips in dumb inspiration, the
Baron himself thought of things that had not the remotest connection
with what he said.
"The very same man who tried to make the new Empire inhabitable, with
the aid of a liberal code of laws, and who brought the long-drawn-out
quarrel between the Emperor and the Pope to a happy conclusion, is now
trying, by word, thought, and deed, gradually to destroy all liberal
traditions and to proclaim the Roman High Priest as the real creator of
peace. All that the German Chancellor could do to give the final blow to
liberalism he has done. The reaction has not hesitated to abandon the
idea of the _Kulturkampf_ and to work instead in the interests of class
hatred and racial prejudice, nurturing them even with deeds of
violence. Faced with the crimes they themselves have committed, they
will see their own children despised and rejected."
"_Depeche-toi, mon bon garcon_," screeched the parrot.
"I am happy at the thought of having snatched a precious booty from the
claws of anarchy, and of having won a new citizen for the State, my dear
Herr Schimmelweis. But for the time being it will be advisable for you
to keep somewhat in the background. They will be inclined to make your
change of political conviction the subject of vociferous attacks, and
that might injure the cause."
VI
What was the old Baron really thinking about while he delivered this
political speech?
There was just one thought in his mind; the same sullen, concealed anger
gnawed incessantly at his heart.
He thought incessantly of his son, of the contempt which he had
experienced because of him, and was still experiencing daily, even
hourly, because of the fact that Eberhard had withdrawn from his power,
had repudiated him.
He could not get over the fact that he had heaped up millions, and that
Eberhard, so far as it was humanly possible to calculate--and in
accordance with the law--would some day fall heir to a part of these
millions. He knew very little about poverty; but his poisoned mind could
think of nothing else than the satisfaction he would derive from being
able, somehow, to deliver this abortive scion of his own name and blood
over to poverty. Thus did he wish to take vengeance; thus would he
punish.
But it was impossible for him to wreak vengeance on his son as he would
have liked to: between the execution of the punishment and himself stood
the law. The very thought that his riches were increasing daily, hourly,
that the millions he had were creating new millions without his moving a
finger, that he could not even stop the flood if he wished to, and that
consequently the share of this disloyal, rebellious, and hateful son was
becoming larger daily, even hourly--this thought he could not endure. It
poisoned his peace of mind, paralysed his powers, robbed him of all
natural and legitimate joy, and enveloped his days in a cloud of
despair.
A modern Midas, he transformed everything he touched into gold; and the
more gold he had the sadder his life became, the more revengeful his
soul.
The tones of a piano reached his ear; it was his wife who was playing.
She played Mendelssohn's "Song Without Words." He shook with disgust;
for of all things repulsive, music was to him the most repulsive.
"_Depeche-toi, mon bon garcon_," screeched the parrot.
VII
During Jason Philip's absence, poorly dressed people frequently came to
the shop and demanded that Theresa give them back the money they had
paid in on their insurance.
Some of them became very much excited when Theresa told them that she
would do nothing of the kind, that the insurance was the affair of her
husband, and that she had nothing whatever to do with it. A locksmith's
apprentice had given a sound thrashing to Zwanziger, the clerk, who had
hastened up to protect the wife of his employer. A gold-beater from
Fuerth had created so much excitement that the police had to be called
in. A cooper's widow, who had managed to pay her premiums for one year,
but had been unable to continue the payment for the quite sufficient
reason that she had been in the hospital, fell headlong to the floor in
epileptic convulsions when she heard how matters stood.
It finally reached the point where Theresa was frightened every time she
saw a strange face. She breathed more easily when a day had passed
without some disagreeable scene, but trembled at the thought of what
might happen on the day to come.
What disturbed her more than anything else was the inexplicable
disappearance of small sums of money; this had been going on for some
time. A man came into the office once and laid his monthly premium, one
taler in all, on the counter. When he left, Theresa closed the door
behind him in order that she might be able to watch the snow storm from
the window. When she returned to the desk the taler had disappeared. She
asked where it was. Jason Philip, who was just then handing some books
up the ladder to Zwanziger, became so gruff that one might have thought
she had accused him of the theft. She counted the money over in the
till, but in vain; the taler had vanished.
She had forgotten, or had not noticed, that Philippina had been in the
office. She had brought her father his evening sandwiches, and then gone
out again without making the slightest noise; she wore felt shoes.
On another occasion she missed a number of groschen from her purse. On
still another, a spice merchant came in and demanded that she pay a bill
of three marks. She was certain she had already paid it; she was certain
she had given Philippina the money to pay it. Philippina was called in.
She, however, denied having anything to do with it, and acted with such
self-assurance that Theresa, completely puzzled, reached down in her
pocket and handed over the three marks in perfect silence.
She had suspected the maid, she had suspected the clerk. She even
suspected Jason Philip himself; she thought that he was appropriating
money to pay his drinking expenses. And she suspected Philippina. But in
no case could she produce the evidence; her spying and investigating
were in vain. Then the thieving stopped again.
For Philippina, who had been doing all the stealing, feared she might be
discovered, and adopted a less hazardous method of making herself a rich
woman: she stole books, and sold them to the second-hand dealer. She was
sly enough to take books that had been on the shelves for a long while,
and not to do all her business with one dealer: she would go first to
one and then to another.
The money which she scraped together in this way, as secretly and
greedily as a jack-daw, she hid in the attic. There was a loose brick in
the wall near the chimney. This she removed; and in time she removed
other bricks. And once her treasures were safely stored in the hole, she
would replace the bricks and set a board up against them.
When everything had become perfectly quiet and she felt wholly at ease,
she would sit down, fold her hands, and give herself up to speechless
meditation, an evil and fanatic dream playing over her features as she
did.
VIII
One evening in February, Theresa and Philippina chanced to be sitting by
the lamp mending the week's wash. Jason Philip entered the room; there
was a sheepish expression on his face; he rubbed his hands.
Since Theresa did not consider it worth her trouble to ask him why he
was in such a good humour, he suddenly laughed out loud and said: "Now
we can pack up, my dear. I see it in writing: The wonder of the age, or
the humiliated relatives. A touching tableau presented by Herr Daniel
Nothafft of the Schimmelweis family."
"I do not understand you; you are talking like a harlequin again," said
Theresa.
"Compositions by Daniel are going to be played in a public concert,"
Philippina informed her mother with that old, harsh voice of hers.
"How do you know?" asked Theresa, in a tone of evident distrust.
"I read it in the paper."
"The miracle is to take place in the Harmony Society," said Jason
Philip, by way of confirming Philippina's remark, with an expression of
enigmatic malevolence. "There is to be a public rehearsal on Thursday,
and there is nothing on earth that can keep me away. The music dealer,
Zierfuss, has given me two tickets, and if you want to, why, you can come
along and see how they make a local hero out of a plain loafer."