The Goose Man
Just then the melody for which he had waited so long throughout so many
nights of restless despair arose before him in a grandiose circle. It
seemed as if born for the words of the "Harzreise": "With the dim
burning torch thou lightest for him the ferries at night over bottomless
paths, across desolate fields."
In mournful thirds, receding again and again, the voices sank to earth;
just one remained on high, alone, piously dissociated from profane
return.
He hummed the melody with trembling lips to himself, until he met the
nineteenth-century Socrates with his followers in the Rosenthal. They
were still gipsying through the night.
They all talked at once; they were going to the fire. Daniel passed by
unrecognised. The shrill voice of the painter Kropotkin pierced the air:
"Hail to the flames! Hail to those whose coming we announce!" The
laughter of the slough brothers died away in the distance.
Gertrude was standing at the head of the stairs with a candle in her
hand; she had been waiting there since twelve o'clock. At eleven she had
gone over to her father's house and rung the bell. Eleanore, frightened,
had raised the window, and called down to her that Daniel had left her
at nine.
He took the half-inanimate woman into the living room: "You must never
wait for me, never," he said.
He opened the window, pointed to the glowing sky beyond the church, and
as she leaned her head, with eyes closed, on his shoulder, he said with
a scurrilous distortion of his face: "Behold! The fire! Hail to the
flames! Hail to those whose coming we announce!"
V
The following morning Eleanore had no time to think of why Daniel had
not gone home.
Jordan had just finished his breakfast when some one rang the door bell
with unusual rapidity. Eleanore went to the door, and came back with
Herr Zittel, who was in a rare state of excitement.
"I have come to inquire about your son, Jordan," he began, clearing his
throat as though he were embarrassed.
"About my son?" replied Jordan astonished, "I thought you had given him
three days' leave."
"I know nothing about that," replied Herr Zittel.
"Last Saturday evening he went on a visit to his friend Gerber in
Bamberg to celebrate the founding of a club, or something of that sort;
we are not expecting him until to-morrow. If you know nothing about this
arrangement, Herr Diruf must have given him his leave."
The chief of the clerical department bit his lips. "Can you give me the
address of this Herr Gerber?" he asked, "I should like to send him a
telegram."
"For heaven's sake, what has happened, Herr Zittel?" cried Jordan,
turning pale.
Herr Zittel stared into space with his gloomy, greenish eyes: "On
Saturday afternoon Herr Diruf gave your son a cheque for three thousand
seven hundred marks, and told him to cash it at the branch of the
Bavarian Bank and bring the money to me. I was busy and did not go to
the office in the afternoon. To-day, about a half-hour ago, Herr Diruf
asked me whether I had received the money. It turned out that your son
had not put in his appearance on Saturday, and since he has not shown up
this morning either, you will readily see why we are so uneasy."
Jordan straightened up as stiff as a flag pole: "Do you mean to
insinuate that my son is guilty of some criminal transaction?" he
thundered forth, and struck the top of the table with the bones of his
clenched fist.
Herr Zittel shrugged his shoulders: "It is, of course, possible that
there has been some misunderstanding, or that some one has failed to
perform his duty. But in any event the affair is serious. Something must
be done at once, and if you leave me in the lurch I shall have to call
in the police."
Jordan's face turned ashen pale. For some reason or other he began to
fumble about in his long black coat for the pocket. The coat had no
pocket, and yet he continued to feel for it with hasty fingers. He tried
to speak, but his tongue refused to obey him; beads of perspiration
settled on his brow.
Eleanore embraced him with solicitous affection: "Be calm, Father, don't
imagine the worst. Sit down, and let us talk it over." She dried the
perspiration from his forehead with her handkerchief, and then breathed
a kiss on it.
Jordan fell on a chair; his powers of resistance were gone; he looked at
Eleanore with beseeching tenseness. From the very first she had known
what had happened and what would happen. But she dared not show him that
she was without hope; she summoned all the power at her resourceful
command to prevent the old man from having a paralytic stroke.
With the help of Herr Zittel she wrote out a telegram to Gerber. The
answer, to be pre-paid, was to be sent to the General Agency of the
Prudentia, and Eleanore was to go to the main office between eleven and
twelve o'clock. She accompanied Herr Zittel to the front door, whereupon
he said: "Do everything in your power to get the money. If the loss can
be made good at once, Herr Diruf may be willing not to take the case to
the courts."
Eleanore knew full well that it would be exceedingly difficult to get
such a sum as this. Her father had no money in the bank; his employer
had lost confidence in him because he could no longer exert himself;
what he needed most of all was a rest.
She entered the room with a friendly expression on her face, and
remarked quite vivaciously: "Now, Father, we will wait and see what
Benno has to say; and in order that you may not worry so much, I will
read something nice to you."
Sitting on a hassock at her father's feet she read from a recent number
of the _Gartenlaube_ the description of an ascent of Mont Blanc. Then
she read another article that her eye chanced to fall upon. All the
while her bright voice was ringing through the room, she was struggling
with decisions to which she might come and listening to the ticking of
the clock. That her father no more had his mind on what she was reading
than she herself was perfectly clear to her.
Finally the clock struck eleven. She got up, and said she had to go to
the kitchen to make the fire. A maid usually came in at eleven to get
dinner for the family, but to-day she had not appeared. Out in the hall
Eleanore took her straw hat, and hastened over to Gertrude's as fast as
her feet could carry her. Daniel was not at home; Gertrude was peeling
potatoes.
In three sentences Eleanore had told her sister the whole story. "Now
you come with me at once! Go up and stay with Father! See that he does
not leave the house! I will be back in half an hour!"
Gertrude was literally dragged down the steps by Eleanore; before she
could ask questions of any kind, Eleanore had disappeared.
At the General Agency Herr Zittel met her with the reply from that
Gerber, Benno's friend. It bore Gerber's signature, and read: "Benno
Jordan has not been here."
Benjamin Dorn stood behind Herr Zittel; he displayed an expression of
soft, smooth, dirge-like regret.
"Herr Diruf would like to speak to you," said Herr Zittel coldly.
Eleanore entered Herr Diruf's private office; her face was pale. He kept
on writing for about three minutes before he took any notice of her.
Then his plum-like eyes opened lazily, a rare, voluptuous smile sneaked
out from under his moustache like a slothful flash of heat lightning; he
said: "The sharper has gone and done it, hasn't he?"
Eleanore never moved.
"Can the embezzled money be returned within twenty-four hours?" asked
the pudgy, purple prince of pen-pushers.
"My father will do everything that is humanly possible," replied
Eleanore anxiously.
"Be so good as to inform your father that to-morrow morning at twelve
o'clock the charge will be preferred and placed in the hands of the
police, if the money has not been paid by that time."
Eleanore hastened home. Now her father had to be brought face to face
with the realities of the case. He and Gertrude were sitting close to
each other in terrible silence. Eleanore revealed the exact state of
affairs; she had to.
"My good name!" groaned Jordan.
He had to save himself from disgrace; the twenty-four hours seemed to
offer him a sure means of doing this. He had not the remotest doubt but
that he could find friends who would come to his aid; for he had
something of which he could boast: a blameless past and the reputation
of being a reliable citizen.
Thus he thought it over to himself. And as soon as he made up his mind
to appeal to the friends of whom he felt he was certain, the most
difficult part of his plan seemed to have been completed. The suffering
to which he was condemned by his wounded pride and his betrayed, crushed
filial affection he had to bear alone. He knew that this was a separate
item.
He went out to look up his friends.
VI
The first one he appealed to was the brother-in-law of his sister, First
Lieutenant Kupferschmied, retired. His sister had died six months ago,
leaving nothing; the lieutenant, however, was a well-to-do man. He had
married into the family of a rich merchant. Jordan's relation to him had
always been pleasant; indeed the old soldier seemed to be very fond of
him. But hardly had Jordan explained his mission when the lieutenant
became highly excited. He said he had seen this disaster coming. He
remarked that any man who brings up his children in excessive ease must
not be surprised if they come to a bad end. He remarked, too, that no
power on earth could persuade him to invest one penny in Jordan's case.
Jordan went away speechless.
The second friend he appealed to was his acquaintance of long standing,
Judge Ruebsam. From him he heard a voluble flow of words dealing with
regrets, expressions of disgust, one lament after the other, a jeremiade
on hard times, maledictions hurled at dilatory creditors, infinite
consolation--and empty advice. He assured Jordan that yesterday he had
almost the requisite sum in cash, and that he might have it again some
time next month, but to-day--ah, to-day his taxes were due, and so on,
and so on.
Oppressed by the weight of this unexpected humiliation, he went to the
third friend, a merchant by the name of Hornbusch, to whom he had once
rendered invaluable assistance. Herr Hornbusch had forgotten all about
this, though he had not forgotten that he had vainly sounded in Jordan's
ears a warning against the ever-increasing flippancy of young Benno. He
told Jordan that he himself was just then in urgent need of money, that
he had only last month been obliged to sacrifice a mortgage, and that
his wife had pawned her diamonds.
Thus it went with the fourth friend, an architect who had told him once
that he would sacrifice money and reputation for him if he ever got into
trouble. And it was the same story with the fifth and sixth and seventh.
With a heart as heavy as lead, Jordan decided to take the last desperate
step: He went to Herr Diruf himself. He asked for a three days'
extension of time. Diruf sat inapproachable at his desk. He was smoking
a big thick Havana cigar, his solitaire threw off its blinding
fireworks, he smiled a cold, tired smile and shook his head in
astonishment.
When Jordan came home that evening he found Daniel and Gertrude in the
living room. Gertrude went up to him to support him; then she brought
him a glass of wine as a stimulant: he had not eaten anything since
breakfast.
"Where is Eleanore?" he murmured, but seemed to take no interest in the
reply to his question. He fell down on a chair, and buried his face in
his hands.
Gertrude, who saw his strength leaving him as the light dies out of a
slowly melting candle, became dizzy with compassion. Her last hope was
in Eleanore, who had left at five o'clock simply because she found it