The Goose Man
Doederlein put the little girl down and gave her her doll. Then he drew
himself up to the fulness of his gigantic stature, a process that gave
him obvious pleasure. His neck was so fat that his chin seemed to rest
on a gelatinous mass.
He seemed not to recall Daniel. Cues had to be given him to distinguish
this among his crowded memories. He snapped his fingers. It was a sign
that his mind had reached the desired place. "Ah, yes, yes, yes! To be
sure, to be sure, my dear young man! But what do you suppose? Just now
when all available space is as crowded as a street strewn with crumbs is
crowded with sparrows. We might take the matter up again in autumn. Yes,
in autumn something might be done."
A pause, during which the great man gave inarticulate sounds of profound
regret. And was the young man, after all, so sure of a genuine talent?
Had he considered that art was becoming more and more an idling place
for the immature and the shipwrecked? It was so difficult to tell the
sheep from the goats. And finally, granting talent, how was the young
man equipped in the matter of moral energy? There, indisputably, the
core of the problem was to be sought. Or didn't he, perhaps, think so?
As through a fog Daniel observed that the little girl had approached him
and looked him over with a curiously cold and testing glance. Almost he
was impelled to stretch out his hand and cover the eyes of the child,
whose manner was uncanny to him through some ghostly presentiment.
"I'm truly sorry that I can't give you a more encouraging outlook."
Andreas Doederlein's voice was oily, and showed a conscious delight in
its own sound. "But as I said, there's nothing to be done until autumn.
Suppose you leave me your address. Put it down on this slip. No? Well,
quite as you wish. Good-bye, young man, good-bye."
Doederlein accompanied him to the door. Then he returned to his daughter,
took her on his knee, picked up the doll, and said: "Human beings, my
dear Dorothea, are a wretched set. If I were to compare them to sparrows
on the road, I should be doing the sparrows but little honour. Heavens
and earth! Wouldn't even write his name on a slip of paper. Felt hurt!
Well, well, well. What funny creatures men are. Wouldn't leave his name.
Well, well."
He hummed the Walhalla motif, and Dorothea, bending over her doll,
coquettishly kissed the waxen face.
Daniel, standing in front of the house, bit his lips like a man in a
fever who does not want his teeth to rattle. Why, the depth of his soul
asked him, why did you sit in their counting-houses and waste their
time? Why did you crucify your body and bind my wings? Why were you deaf
to me and desirous of gathering fruits where there are only stones? Why
did you, like a coward, flee from your fate to their offices and
ware-houses and iron safes and all their doleful business? For the sake
of this hour? Poor fool!
And he answered: "Never again, my soul, never again."
XI
In the beginning Marian had received a letter from Daniel every now and
then. These letters became rarer. During the second year he wrote only
once--a few lines at Christmas.
At the time when he was leaving his last place of employment he wrote
her on a postcard that he was changing his residence again. But he did
not tell her that he was going to Nuremberg. So spring passed and
summer. Then her soul, which was wavering between fear and hope, was
rudely jolted out of its dim state by a letter from Jason Philip.
He wrote that Daniel was loafing about in Nuremberg. Quite by accident
he had met him a few days before near the fair booths on Schuett Island.
His appearance was indescribable. He had tried to question him, but
Daniel had disappeared. What had brought him to the city he, Jason
Philip, could not see. But he was willing to wager that at the bottom of
it was some shady trick, for the fellow had not looked like one who
earns an honest living. So he proposed to Marian that she should come to
Nuremberg and help in a raid on the vagabond, in order to prevent the
unblemished name he bore from being permanently disgraced before it was
too late. As a contribution to her travelling expenses he enclosed five
marks in stamps.
Marian had received the letter at noon. She had at once locked up her
house and shop. At two o'clock she had reached the station at Ansbach;
at four she arrived in Nuremberg. Carrying her hand-bag, she asked her
way to Plobenhof Street at every corner.
Theresa sat at the cashier's desk. Her brown hair on her square
peasant's skull was smoothly combed. Zwanziger, the freckled
shop-assistant, was busy unpacking books. Theresa greeted her sister
with apparent friendliness, but she did not leave her place. She
stretched out her hand across the ink-stand, and observed Marian's
shabby appearance--the worn shawl, the old-fashioned little cloth bonnet
with its black velvet ribbands meeting in a bow under the chin.
"Go upstairs for a bit," she said, "and let the children entertain you.
Rieke will bring up your bag."
"Where is your husband?" asked Marian.
"At an electors' meeting," Theresa answered morosely. "They couldn't
meet properly, according to him, if he isn't there."
At that moment a man in a workingman's blouse entered the shop and began
to talk to Theresa urgently in a soft but excited voice. "I bought the
set of books and they're my property," said the man. "Suppose I did skip
a payment. That's no reason to lose my property. I call that sharp
practice, Frau Schimmelweis, that's what I call it."
"What did Herr Wachsmuth buy of us?" Theresa turned to the
shop-assistant.
"Schlosser's 'History of the World,'" was the prompt answer.
"Then you'd better read your contract," Theresa said to the workingman.
"The terms are all fixed there."
"That's sharp practice, Frau Schimmelweis, sharp practice," the man
repeated, as though this phrase summed up all he could express in the
way of withering condemnation. "A fellow like me wants to get on and
wants to learn something. All right. So I think I'll buy me a book and
get a step ahead in knowledge. So where do I go? To a party member, to
Comrade Schimmelweis, thinking natural-like I'm safe in his hands. I pay
sixty marks--hard earned money--for a history of the world, and manage
to squeeze the payments out o' my wages, and then, all of a sudden, when
half the price is paid, I'm to have my property taken from me without so
much as a by your leave just because I'm two payments in arrears."
"Read your contract," said Theresa. "Every point is stipulated."
"No wonder people get rich," the man went on. His voice grew louder and
louder, and he glanced angrily at Jason Philip, who at that moment
rushed into the shop with his hat crushed and his trousers sprinkled
with mud. "No wonder that people can buy houses and speculate in real
estate. Yes, Schimmelweis, I call such things sharp practice, and I
don't give a damn for your contract. Everybody knows by this time what
kind of business is done here--more like a man-trap--and that these here
instalments are just a scheme to squeeze the workingman dry. First you
talk to him about education, and then you suck his blood. It's hell!"
"Pull yourself together, Wachsmuth!" Jason Philip cried sternly.
Wachsmuth picked up his cap, and slammed the shopdoor behind him.
Marian Nothafft's eyes passed mechanically over the titles of a row of
fiercely red pamphlets spread out on a table. She read: "The Battle that
Decides," "Modern Slaveholders," "The Rights of the Poor," "Christianity
and Capitalism," "The Crimes of the Bourgeoisie." Although these
catch-words meant nothing to her, she felt in her heart once more her
old, long forgotten hatred against machines.
XII
"Fetch me a sandwich, Theresa," Jason Philip commanded, "I'm hungry as a
wolf."
"Didn't you eat anything at the inn?" Theresa asked suspiciously.
"I was at no such place." Jason Philip's eyes gleamed, and he shook his
head like a lion.
So Theresa went to fetch his sandwich. It was queer to observe how much
distrust and contradiction she was able to express through the sloth of
her movements. But her daughter Philippina was already hurrying down the
stairs with the sandwich.
At this moment Jason Philip became aware of his sister-in-law. "Ah,
there you are, you shrinking flower," he said lightly, and held out his
pudgy hand. "Theresa will put you up in the little room under the
store-room. You have a pleasant view of the river there."
Theresa handed him the bread. He sniffed at it, and frowned because it
wasn't thickly enough buttered. But he had not the courage to complain.
He bit into it, and, with full cheeks, turned once more to Marian.
"Well, that son of yours has disappeared again. A nice situation.
Shouldn't wonder if he ended in the penitentiary. The best thing would
be to ship him off to America; but it isn't clear to me how we're to
get hold of him at all. It was really premature to ask you to come."
"If only I knew what he's living on," Marian whispered, with repressed
anguish.
Jason Philip indulged with broad psychical comfort in an anecdote: "I
was reading the other day how a giraffe escaped from the Zoo. You've
heard of giraffes. They are long-necked quadrupeds, very stupid and
stubborn. The silly beast had run off into the woods, and the people
didn't know how to capture it. Then the keeper hung the stable-lantern
over his chest and a bundle of hay on his back, and at nightfall went
into the woods. Scarcely had the giraffe noticed the gleam of the
lantern when it came up in its curiosity. At once the man swung around.
It smelled the hay, nibbled, and began to feed. Slowly the man went on,
and the beast went on nibbling and feeding. First thing you know it was
back in its cage. Now don't you think that when hunger begins to torment
him, your Daniel could be tamed with a bit of hay too? It's worth your
thinking about."
Jason Philip laughed merrily, and Zwanziger grinned. His boss was a
source of humour. At night, when he sat in his favourite tap-rooms over
his beer, he would entertain his boon companions with the witticisms of
Schimmelweis, and always won their applause.
A lean old man with kid gloves and a top-hat entered the shop. It was
growing dark, and he had peered carefully about before entering. He
hurried up to Jason Philip, and said in a cracked falsetto: "How about
the new publications? Anything very fine?" He rubbed his hands, and
stared stupidly from under his thin, reddish lids. It was Count
Schlemm-Nottheim, a cousin of the Baron von Auffenberg, the leader of
the liberal party.
"I'm entirely at your service, sir," said Jason Philip, holding himself
as rigidly as a sergeant who is being addressed by a captain.
He led the count to a corner of the shop, and opened a heavy oaken
chest. This chest contained the pornographic publications forbidden by
the state. They were sold quite secretly and only to very reliable
persons.
Jason Philip whispered, and the old count turned over the heap of books
with avid fingers.
XIII
Marian climbed up the steep, dark stairs, and rang the upstairs bell.
She had to tell the maid who she was and even mention her name to the
children. The latter laughed at her stiff, rural courtesy. Philippina,
who was twelve, acted arrogantly and swung her hips when she walked. All
three had their mother's square head and a cheesy complexion.
The maid brought up the bag. Then Theresa came too and helped her sister
unpack. With her acrid, unfeeling voice she asked many questions, but
without waiting for an answer told the tale of marriage and births and
deaths that had taken place in the city. She avoided Marian's eyes,