The Goose Man
your spiritual equanimity. You were always thrilled, always in ecstasy,
it made not the slightest difference whether the cause of your ecstasy
was the first spring violet or a thunder storm, a burnt roast, a sore
throat, or a poem. You were always raving, and I became tired of your
raving. You did not seem to notice that my distrust toward the
expression of these so-called feelings was transformed into coldness,
impatience, and hatred. And then came the music. What was at first a
diversion for you, of which one might approve or disapprove, became in
time the indemnity for an active life and all the defects of your
character. You gave yourself up to music somewhat as a prostitute gives
herself up to her first loyal lover"--the Baroness twitched as if some
one had struck her across the back with a horsewhip--"yes, like a
prostitute," he repeated, turning paler and paler, his eyes glistening.
"Then it was that your whole character came to light; one saw how
spoiled you were, how helpless, how undisciplined. You clung like a worm
to uncertain and undetermined conditions. If I have become a devil in
your eyes, it is your music that has made me so. Now you know it."
"So that is it," whispered the Baroness with faltering breath. "Did you
leave me anything but my music? Have you not raged like a tiger? But it
is not true," she exclaimed, "you are not so vicious, otherwise I myself
would be a lie in the presence of the Eternal Judge, and that I had
borne children by you would be contrary to nature. Leave me, go away, so
that I may believe that it is not true!"
The Baron did not move.
In indescribable excitement, and as quickly as her obese body would
permit, the Baroness leaped to her feet: "I know you better," she said
with trembling lips, "I have been able to foreshadow what is driving you
about; I have seen what makes you so restless. You are not the man you
pretend to be; you are not the cold, heartless creature you seem. In
your breast there is a spot where you are vulnerable, and there you have
been struck. You are bleeding, man! If we all, I and your daughter and
your brothers and your friends and your cowardly creatures, are as
indifferent and despicable to you as so many flies, there is one who has
been able to wound you; this fact is gnawing at your heart. And do you
know why he was in a position to wound you? Because you loved him. Look
me in the eye, and tell me that I lie. You loved him--your son--you
idolised him. The fact that he has repudiated your love, that he found
it of no value to him, the love that blossomed on the ruined lives of
his mother and sister, this is the cause of your sorrow. It is written
across your brow. And that you are suffering, and suffering for this
reason, constitutes my revenge."
The Baron did not say a word; his lower jaw wagged from left to right as
though he were chewing something; his face seemed to have dried up; he
looked as though he had suddenly become older by years. The Baroness,
driven from her reserve, stood before him like an enraged sibyl. He
turned in silence, and left the room.
"My suffering is her revenge," he murmured on leaving the room. Once
alone, he stood for a while perfectly absent-minded. "Am I really
suffering?" he said to himself.
He turned off a gas jet that was burning above the book case. "Yes, I am
suffering," he confessed reluctantly; "I am suffering." He walked along
the wall with dragging feet, and entered a room in which a light was
burning. He felt the same satiety and disgust at himself that he had
experienced a few moments earlier. This time it was caused by the sight
of the hand-carved furniture, the painted porcelain, the precious
tapestries, and the oil paintings in their gold frames.
He longed for simpler things; he longed for barren walls, a cot of
straw, parsimony, discipline. It was not the first time that his
exhausted organism had sought consolation in the thought of a monastic
life. This Protestant, this descendent of a long line of Protestants,
had long been tired of Protestantism. He regarded the Roman Church as
the more wholesome and merciful.
But the transformation of his religious views was his own carefully
guarded secret. And secret it had to remain until he, the undisciplined
son of his mother, could atone for his past misdeeds. He decided to wait
until this atonement had been effected. Just as a hypnotist gains
control of his medium by inner composure, so he thought he could hasten
the coming of this event by conceding it absolute supremacy over his
mind.
III
When Eberhard von Auffenberg left the paternal home to strike out for
himself, he was as helpless as a child that has lost the hand of its
adult companion in a crowd.
He put the question to himself: What am I going to do? He had never
worked. He had studied at various universities as so many other young
men have studied, that is, he had managed to pass a few examinations by
the skin of his teeth.
He had had so little to do in life, and was so utterly devoid of
ambition, that he looked upon a really ambitious individual as being
insane. Anything that was at all practical was filled with
insurmountable obstacles. His freedom, in other words, placed him in a
distressing state of mind and body.
It would not have been difficult for him to find people who would have
been willing to advance him money on his name. But he did not wish to
incur debts of which his father might hear. If he did, his solemn
solution of an unbearable relation would have amounted to nothing.
He could, of course, count on his share of the estate; and he did count
on it, notwithstanding the fact that to do so was to speculate on the
death of his own father. He stood in urgent need of a confidential
friend; and this friend he thought he had found in Herr Carovius.
"Ah, two people such as you and I will not insist upon unnecessary
formalities," said Herr Carovius. "All that I need is your face, and
your signature to a piece of paper. We will deduct ten per cent at the
very outset, so that my expenses may be covered, for money is dear at
present. I will give you real estate bonds; they are selling to-day at
eighty-five, unfortunately. The Exchange is a trifle spotty, but a
little loss like that won't mean anything to you."
For the ten thousand marks that he owed, Eberhard received seven
thousand, six hundred and fifty, cash. In less than a year he was again
in need of money, and asked Herr Carovius for twenty thousand. Herr
Carovius said he did not have that much ready money, and that he would
have to approach a lender.
Eberhard replied sulkily that he could do about that as he saw fit, but
he must not mention his name to a third party. A few days later Herr
Carovius told a tale, of hair-splitting negotiations: there was a
middleman who demanded immodest guarantees, including certified notes.
He swore that he knew nothing about that kind of business, and that he
had undertaken to supply the needed loan only because of his excessive
affection for his young friend.
Eberhard was unmoved. The eel-like mobility of the man with the
squeaking voice did not please him; not at all; as a matter of fact he
began to dread him; and this dread increased in intensity and
fearfulness in proportion to the degree in which he felt he was becoming
more and more entangled in his net.
The twenty thousand marks were procured at an interest of thirty-five
per cent. At first Eberhard refused to sign the note. He would not touch
it until Herr Carovius had assured him that it was not to be converted
into currency, that it could be redeemed with new loans at any time, and
that it would lie in his strong-box as peacefully as the bones of the
Auffenberg ancestors rested in their vaults. Eberhard, tired of this
flood of words, yielded.
Every time he signed his name he had a feeling that the danger into
which he was walking was becoming greater. But he was too lazy to defend
himself; he was too aristocratic to interest himself in petty
explanations; and he was simply not capable of living on a small income.
The endorsed notes were presented as a matter of warning; new loans
settled them; new loans made new notes necessary; these were extended;
the extensions were costly; an uncanny individual shielded in anonymity
was taken into confidence. He bought up mortgages, paid for them in
diamonds instead of money, and sold depreciated stocks. The debts having
reached a certain height, Herr Carovius demanded that Eberhard have his
life insured. Eberhard had to do it; the premium was very high. In the
course of three years Eberhard had lost all perspective; he could no
longer survey his obligations. The money he received he spent in the
usual fashion, never bothered himself about the terms on which he had
secured it, and had no idea where all this was leading to and where it
was going to end. He turned in disgust from Herr Carovius's clumsy
approaches, malicious gibes, and occasional threats.
What an insipid smile he had! How fatuous, and then again how profound,
his conversation could be! He took upon himself the impudent liberty of
running in and out at Eberhard's whenever he felt like it. He bored him
with his discussion of philosophic systems, or with miserable gossip
about his neighbours. He watched him day and night.
He followed him on the street. He would come up to him and cry out,
"Herr Baron, Herr Baron!" and wave his hat. His solicitude for
Eberhard's health resembled that of a gaoler. One evening Eberhard went
to bed with a fever. Herr Carovius ran to the physician, and then spent
the whole night by the bedside of the patient, despite his entreaties to
be left alone. "Would it not be well for me to write to your mother?" he
asked, with much show of affection on the next morning when he noticed
that the fever had not fallen. Eberhard sprang from his bed with an
exclamation of rage, and Herr Carovius left immediately and
unceremoniously.
Herr Carovius loved to complain. He ran around the table, exclaiming
that he was ruined. He brought out his cheque book, added up the
figures, and cried: "Two more years of this business, dear Baron, and I
will be ready for the poor house." He demanded security and still more
securities; he asked for renewed promises. He submitted an account of
the total sum, and demanded an endorsement. But it was impossible for
any one to make head or tail out of this welter of interest,
commissions, indemnities, and usury. Herr Carovius himself no longer
knew precisely how matters stood; for a consortium of subsequent
indorsers had been formed behind his back, and they were exploiting his
zeal on behalf of the young Baron for all it was worth.
"What is this I hear about you and the women?" asked Herr Carovius one
day. "What about a little adventure?" He had noticed that the Baron had
a secret; and it enraged him to think that he could not get at the
bottom of this amorous mystery.
He made this discovery one day as Eberhard was packing his trunk. "Where
are you going, my dear friend?" he crowed in exclamatory dismay.
Eberhard replied that he was going to Switzerland. "To Switzerland? What
are you going to do there? I am not going to let you go," said Herr
Carovius. Eberhard gave him one cold stare. Herr Carovius tried
beseeching, begging, pleading. It was in vain; Eberhard left for
Switzerland. He wanted to be alone; he became tired of being alone, and
returned; he went off again; he came back again, and had the
conversation with Eleanore that robbed him of his last hope. Then he
went to Munich, and took up with the spiritists.
Spiritual and mental ennui left him without a vestige of the power of
resistance. An inborn tendency to scepticism did not prevent him from