The Goose Man
wooden pickets of the fence. After some time she rises, stares up once
more at the windows with distorted lips, and then moves away with slow,
dragging steps.
It was Philippina Schimmelweis. She kept going about the streets in this
fashion until break of day.
DANIEL AND GERTRUDE
I
The Reichstag had voted to extend the period during which the Socialist
law would be in effect; the passing of a new army bill was also to be
expected. These two measures had provoked tumultuous discord in many
parts of the country.
The Social Democrats were planning a parade through the main streets of
the city in October, but the police had already forbidden their
demonstration. The evening the edict was issued the regiments stood at
alert in the barracks; feeling ran high throughout the entire city. In
Woehrd and Plobenhof there had been a number of riots; in the narrow
streets of the central zone thousands of workmen had stormed the
Rathaus.
Every now and then there would come a long, shrill whistle from the
silent mass, followed at once by the heavy rolling of drums at the guard
house.
Among those who came down from the direction of Koenig Street was the
workman Wachsmuth. In the vicinity of the Schimmelweis shop he delivered
an excited harangue against the former member of the party; his words
fell on fruitful soil. A locksmith's apprentice who had lost some money
through the Prudentia violently defamed the character of the bookseller.
The mob gathered before the lighted shop window. Wachsmuth stood by the
door, and demanded that the traitor be suspended from a lamp post before
this day's sun had set. A stone flew through the air over their heads,
and crashed through the window; pieces of glass flew in all directions.
Thereupon a dozen fellows rushed into the shop, exclaiming, "Where is
the dirty dog? Let us get at the blood-sucker!" They wanted to teach him
a lesson he would never forget.
Before Theresa could open her mouth, scraps of books and newspapers were
flying in every direction, and pamphlets were being trampled under foot.
A forest of arms were reaching out for the shelves, and bundles of books
were falling to the floor, like stacks of cards piled up by a child and
blown over by the wind. Zwanziger had taken refuge at the top of the
ladder; he was howling. Theresa stood by the till looking like the ghost
of ages. Philippina came in through the back door, and eyed what was
going on without one visible trace of surprise or discomfort; she merely
smiled. Just then the policeman's whistle blew; in less time than it
takes to draw one breath, the rebellious insurgents were beating a hasty
retreat.
When Theresa regained consciousness, the shop was empty; and the street
in front of the shop was as deserted as it ordinarily is at midnight.
After some time, the chief of police came up; he was followed by a crowd
of curious people, who stood around and gaped at the scene of
devastation.
Jason Philip, seeing what was coming, had left the shop betimes and
hidden in his house. He had even locked the front door and was sunk down
on a chair, his teeth clappering with vigour and regularity.
He returned at last to the shop, and with heart-rending dignity faced the
dispenser of justice, who by this time had put in his appearance. He
said: "And this is what I get from people for whom I have sacrificed my
money and my blood."
In giving his testimony as an eyewitness, Zwanziger displayed boastful
hardiness in his narration of details. Philippina looked at him with
venomous contempt from under the imbecile locks that hung down over her
forehead, and murmured: "You disgusting coward!"
When Jason Philip came back from the inn, he said: "To believe that
people can be ruled without the knout is a fatal delusion." With that he
stepped into his embroidered slippers--"For tired Father--Consolation."
The slippers had aged, and so had Jason Philip. His beard was streaked
with grey.
Theresa took an invoice of the damage the mob had done: she felt that
Jason Philip was a ruined man.
As he lay stretched out in bed, Jason Philip said: "The first thing I
want to do is to have a serious, heart-to-heart talk with Baron
Auffenberg. The Liberal Party is going to take direct action against the
impudence of the lower classes, or it is going to lose a constituent."
"How many quarts of beer did you drink?" asked Theresa from the depths
of the pillows.
"Two."
"You are a liar."
"Well, possibly I drank three," replied Jason Philip with a yawn. "But
to accuse a man of my standing of lying on such small grounds is an act
of perfidy such as only an uncultured woman like yourself could be
brought to commit."
Theresa blew out the candle.
II
Baron Siegmund von Auffenberg had returned from Munich, where he had had
an interview with the Minister.
He had also seen a great many other people in the presence of whom he
was condescending, jovial, and witty. His amiability was proverbial.
Now he was sitting with a gloomy face by the chimney. Not a one of those
many people who had so recently been charmed by his conversational gifts
would have recognised him.
The stillness and loneliness pained him. An irresistible force drew him
to his wife. He had not seen her for seven weeks, though they had lived
in the same house.
He was drawn to her, because he wanted to know whether she had heard
anything from that person whose name he did not like to mention, from
his son, his enemy, his heir. Not that he wanted to ask his wife any
questions: he merely wished to read her face. Since no one in the
vicinity had dared say a word to him about his son, he was forced to
rely on suppositions and the subtle cunning of his senses at ferreting
out information on this kind of subjects. He did not dare betray the
curiosity with which he waited for some one to inform him that his hated
offspring had at last come to mortal grief.
Six years had elapsed, and still he could hear the insolent voice in
which the monstrous remarks were made that had torn him from the
twilight of his self-complacency; remarks that distressed him more than
any other grief he may have felt in the secrecy of his bed chamber and
which completely and forever robbed him of all the joys of human
existence.
"_Depeche-toi, mon bon garcon_," screeched the parrot.
The Baron arose, and went to his wife's room. She was terrified when she
saw him enter. She was lying on a sofa, her head propped up by cushions,
a thick Indian blanket spread out over her legs.
She had a broad, bloated face, thick lips, and unusually big black eyes,
in which there was a sickly glare. She had been regarded as a beauty in
her young days, though none of this beauty was left, unless it was the
freshness of her complexion or the dignified bearing of the born lady of
the world.
She sent her maid out of the room, and looked at her husband in silence.
She studied the friendly, Jesuitic wrinkles in his face, by virtue of
which he managed to conceal his real thoughts. Her anxiety was
increased.
"You have not played the piano any to-day," he began in a sweet voice.
"It makes the house seem as though something were missing. I am told
that you have acquired perfect technique, and that you have engaged a
new teacher. Emilia told me this."
Emilia was their daughter. She was married to Count Urlich, captain of
cavalry.
In the Baroness's eyes there was an expression such as is found in the
eyes of some leashed beast when the butcher approaches, axe in hand. She
was tortured by the smoothness of the man from whom she had never once
in the last quarter of a century received anything but brutality and
scorn, and from whom she had suffered the grossest of humiliations--when
no one was listening.
"What do you want, Siegmund?" she asked, with painful effort.
The Baron stepped close up to her, bit his lips, and looked at her for
ten or twelve seconds with a fearful expression on his face.
She then seized him by the left arm: "What is the matter with Eberhard?"
she cried; "tell me, tell me everything! There is something wrong."
The Baron, with a gesture of stinging aversion, thrust her hands from
him, and turned to go. There was unfathomable coldness in his conduct.
Beside herself with grief, the Baroness made up her mind to tell him,
for the first time in her life, of the thousand wrongs that burned
within her heart. And she did: "Oh, you monster! Why did Fate bring you
into my life? Where is there another woman in the world whose lot has
been like mine? Where is the woman who has lived without joy or love or
esteem or freedom or peace, a burden to others and to herself? Show me
another woman who goes about in silk and satin longing for death. Name
me another woman who people think is happy, because the devil, who
tortures her without ceasing, deceives them all. Where is there another
woman who has been so shamelessly robbed of her children? For is not my
daughter the captive and concubine of an insane tuft-hunter? Has not my
son been taken from me through the baseness that has been practised
against his sister, and the lamentable spectacle afforded him by my own
powerlessness? Where, I ask high Heaven, is there another woman so
cursed as I have been?"
She threw herself down on her bosom, and burrowed her face into the
cushion.
The Baron was surprised at the feverish eloquence of his wife; he had
accustomed himself to her mute resignation, as he might have accustomed
himself to the regular, monotonous ticking of a hall clock. He was
anxious to see what she would do next, how she would develop her
excitement; she was a novel phenomenon in his eyes: therefore he
remained standing in the door.
But as he stood there in chilly expectancy, his haggard face casting off
expressions of scorn and surprise, he suddenly sensed a feeling of weary
disgust at himself. It was the disgust of a man whose wishes had always
been fulfilled, whose lusts had been satisfied; of a man who has never
known other men except as greedy and practical supplicants; of a man who
has always been the lord of his friends, the tyrant of his servants, and
the centre of all social gatherings; of a man before whom all others
yielded, to whom all others bowed; of a man who had never renounced
anything but the feeling of renunciation.
"I am not unaware," he began slowly, just as if he were making a
campaign speech to his electors, "I am not unaware that our marriage has
not been the source of wholesome blessings. To be convinced of this,
your declamation was unnecessary. We married because the circumstances
were favourable. We had cause to regret the decision. Is it worth while
to investigate the cause now? I am quite devoid of sentimental needs.
This is true of me to such an extent that any display of sympathy or
exuberance or lack of harshness in other people fills me with mortal
antipathy. Unfortunately, my political career obliged me to assume a
favourable attitude toward this general tendency of the masses. I played
the hypocrite with complete consciousness of what I was doing, and made
so much the greater effort to conceal all feeling in my private life."
"It is easy to conceal something you do not have," replied the Baroness
in a tone of intense bitterness.
"Possibly; but it is a poor display of tact for the rich man to irritate
the poor man by flaunting his lavish, spendthrift habits in his face;
and this is precisely what you have done. The emphasis you laid on a
certain possession of yours, the value of which we will not dispute,
provoked my contempt. It gave you pleasure to cry when you saw a cat
eating a sparrow. A banal newspaper novel could rob you completely of