The Goose Man
was a man; they embraced each other, and sank their teeth into each
other's flesh. It was all as criminal as it was irrational; it was a
shame and an abomination to behold. Everywhere she looked she saw
reprehensible nudeness; all clothes seemed to be made of glass; she
could look neither at a man nor at a woman without turning pale. She had
only one refuge: the cradle of her child. She would rush to it and pray.
But as soon as her prayer was ended she again felt stifled in the
poisoned air about her, while the desire to acquit herself of the crime
of which she felt guilty, unable though she was to define the crime or
determine her part in it, robbed her of her sleep. She felt that a great
jagged stone was suspended over her head, that it was becoming less and
less firmly attached every day, and that its fall if not imminent was
certain.
Hour after hour passed by; Daniel finally appeared in the vestibule. He
was not a little terrified when he saw the burning lamp and Gertrude
sitting up in bed.
He went into the bedroom, closed the door, walked up to the cradle,
looked at the child, and then went over to Gertrude. She cast a glance
of infinite inquiry at him. It was a look that seemed to implore him for
a decision, a judgment. At the same time she put out her hands as if to
ward off any approach on his part. When she saw that he was astonished,
she softened the expression on her face, and said: "Give me your hand."
She took his right hand, stroked it, and whispered: "Poor hand, poor
hand."
Daniel bit his lips: "Oh woman, what ...?" That was all.
He sat down in silence on the edge of her bed. Gertrude looked at him in
the same tense, anxious way in which she had studied him a few moments
earlier. He sank down beside her, and fell asleep with his head on her
breast.
She kept on holding his hand. She looked into his pale, narrow face and
at his angular brow, the skin of which could be seen to twitch every now
and then under the loose flowing hair that hung over it. The oil in the
lamp was getting low, the wick had begun to smell. She was afraid
however to put it out lest she might waken Daniel. She looked on in
silence as the light became dimmer and dimmer and finally went out,
leaving only the red glow of the wick. This too died away in time, and
it became dark.
XII
For some time Eleanore had noticed that the baker's boy, instead of
carefully putting the rolls in the sack each morning as had always been
his custom, threw them through the lattice on to the ground.
The newspaper boy stopped speaking to her; the postman smiled
scornfully; and even the beggar, at least she thought so, asked for his
alms in a tone of impudence.
One day she was passing through Schmausen Street; a woman was leaning
out of the window. Seeing Eleanore coming, she called back into the
room, whereupon a young man and three half-grown girls rushed to the
window, began making remarks to each other, and gaped at her with looks
that made her turn deathly pale.
Another time Daniel brought her a free ticket to a concert. She went,
and as soon as she reached the hall she was struck by the discourteous
and indecent manner in which the bystanders looked at her. A
well-dressed woman moved away from her. Some men kept walking around
her, grinning at her. She found it intolerable, and went home.
Exercise in the open had often driven away the cares that chanced to be
weighing upon her: she went skating. As soon as the people saw her, they
began to whisper among themselves. She did not bother about them or
their remarks; she cut her beautiful figures on the ice as if she were
quite alone. A group of young girls pointed at her with their fingers.
She went up to them with pride glistening in her eyes, and they all ran
away. Those who had formerly paid homage to her avoided her now. Her
soul rebelled within her; meeting with so much unexpected and cowardly
vulgarity enflamed her sensibilities and ennobled her self-respect.
One day in December she crossed the Wine Market, and started to pass
through a narrow street that led to the Halle Gate. Standing at the
entrance to the alley were a number of men engaged in conversation. She
recognised Alfons Diruf among them. She thought they would step to one
side and let her pass, but not one of them moved. They gaped at her in
unmitigated shamelessness. She could have turned about and taken another
street, but that defiance on the part of those men made her insist upon
her rights to go the way she had originally decided upon. Impressed,
apparently, by the flaming blue of her eyes, the scoundrels at last
condescended to shift their lazy frames to one side. They formed an
espalier through which she had to walk. But worse than this were the
lewd looks that she knew were following her, and the laughter that
greeted her ears. It was the type of laughter ordinarily heard at night
when one passes a low dive, in which the scum of human society has
gathered to amuse itself by the telling of salacious stories.
She often had the feeling, particularly after dark, that some one was
following her. Once she looked around, and a man was behind her. He wore
a havelock; he turned quickly into a gate. A few days later she had a
similar experience, but this time she was frightened worse than ever,
for she thought it was Herr Carovius.
One evening as she was leaving the house she saw the same figure
standing by the church on the other side of the street. As she hesitated
and wondered whether she should go on, another person joined the first.
She thought it was Philippina. The two began to talk, but Eleanore could
not make out who they were; it was snowing, and there was no street lamp
nearby.
She could not tell why, but she was suddenly seized with anxiety for
Daniel; for him and for no one else. She felt that unless she went back
something dreadful would happen to him. She rushed up the steps to the
attic room, and knocked at his door; there was not a sound. She opened
the door and went in, but everything was dark. In the darkness, however,
standing out against the white background from the light of the snow,
she saw his body. He was sitting at the piano; he had his arms on the
lid, his head between his hands. Eleanore hastened up to him, and, with
a tone of sweet sadness in what she said, threw her arms around his
neck.
Daniel took her on his lap, pressed her head to his bosom, and laughed
with open month and shining teeth but without making a sound. He often
laughed that way now.
XIII
He laughed that way at the intrigues that were being forged against him
by his bitterest enemy, Fraeulein Varini, and which resulted in his
meeting with distrust and opposition in everything he undertook at the
City Theatre.
He laughed that way at the anonymous letters, filled with insulting
remarks, which were being sent him by his fellow citizens, and which he
read with naive curiosity merely to see how far human nastiness and
bestial hate could go.
He laughed that way when he received the letter from Baroness von
Auffenberg informing him that she was forced to discontinue her lessons
and recitals. She said that her constitution had been weakened, and that
she was going to close her town house and spend the winter at her
country place at Hersbruck. Daniel heard however that she spent a great
deal of her time in town, and that she had arranged for an elaborate
cycle of _musicales_, a thing she had never dared to do under his
administration. Andreas Doederlein had been engaged as her musical
adviser: now she could rave and go into ecstasies and hypnotise her
impotent soul in the mephitic air of artificial aroma just as much as
she pleased.
And he laughed that way at the weekly attacks upon him and his art that
appeared in the _Fraenkischer Herold_, copies of which were delivered at
his front door with the regularity of the sun. The attacks consisted of
sly, caustic sneers, secrets that had been ferreted out with dog-like
keenness, gigantic broadsides based on hearsay evidence, and perfidious
suspicions lodged against Daniel Nothafft, the artist, and Daniel
Nothafft, the man.
The articles never failed to mention the Goose Man. Daniel asked to have
the allusion explained. The Goose Man was elevated to the rank and
dignity of an original humourist. "What is the latest concerning the
Goose Man?" became a standing head-line. Or the reader's eye would fall
on the following notice: "The Goose Man is again attracting the
attention of all friends of music. He has had the ingenious audacity to
make the opera 'Stradella' more enjoyable by the interpolation of a
funeral march of his own make. The ever-submissive domestic birds which
he carries under his arms have rewarded him for his efforts in this
connection by the cackling of their abundant and affectionate
gratitude."
The birthplace of these inimitable achievements in the field of
journalistic wit was the reserved table at the Crocodile. If ever in the
history of the world men have laughed real honest tears it was at the
writing of such news bearing on the life and conduct of the Goose Man.
The editor-in-chief, Weibezahl, was the recording secretary at these
intellectual Olympiads, and Herr Carovius was the protagonist. He had
access to reliable sources, as newspaper men say, and every evening he
surprised the round table with new delicacies for Weibezahl's columns.
Daniel was ignorant of what was going on. But the Goose Man, the
expression as well as the figure, became interwoven with his thoughts,
and acquired, somehow and somewhere in the course of time, a
transfigured meaning.
XIV
One day Frau Kirschner wrote to Daniel telling him that she did not wish
to have anything more to do with him; she demanded in the same letter
that he pay back the money she had advanced him. He could not raise it:
the City Theatre had already made him a loan, he had no friends, and M.
Riviere, the only person on earth who might have been able to come to
his rescue, had gone back to France.
Matters took their usual course: A lawyer notified Daniel, giving him so
many days grace; when these had elapsed and no payment had been made, a
summons was served on him; the sheriff came in, and in default of any
other object of value he pawned the piano.
Daniel's objections were quite ineffectual: a few days more and the
piano would be put up at auction.
One gloomy morning in January Philippina entered his room.
"Say, Daniel," she began, "would you like to have some money from me?"
Daniel turned his head slowly and looked at her in amazement.
"I have lots of it," she continued with her hoarse voice, her glassy
eyes glittering underneath her bangs. "I have been saving it a pfennig
at a time ever since I was a child. I can give you the money you owe
the Councillor's wife. Sling it at her, the old hag! Say to me: 'Please
Philippina, give me the money,' and you'll find it on the table."
"Are you crazy?" asked Daniel, "get out of here just as quickly as your
feet can carry you!" He felt distinctly creepy in her presence.
Philippina, beside herself with rage, seized his hand. Before he could
do a thing she bit him just below the little finger. The wound was quite
deep. He groaned, shook her off, and pushed her back. She looked at him
triumphantly, but her face had turned yellow.
"Listen, Daniel," she said in a begging, beseeching tone, "don't be so
ugly! Don't be so mean toward me! Don't be so jealous!"
The wench's infamous smile, her hair hanging down over her eyes, her big
red hands, the snow-flakes on her short cloak, the border on her fiery
red dress below her cloak, and the poison green ribbon on her hat--this