The Goose Man
ensemble of ugliness filled Daniel with the loathing he might have
experienced had he stood face to face with the most detestable picture
he had ever seen from the world of human beings. But as he turned his
head, a feeling of sympathy came over him; he suspected that the girl
was bound to him by bonds that did not reach him until after they had
taken their course through the dark channels of some subterranean
labyrinth. What she had done filled him with dismay; but as a revelation
of character it surprised him and set him to thinking.
He went over to the washing table to put his bleeding hand in the water.
Philippina took a fresh handkerchief from the cabinet, and handed it to
him as a bandage. He looked at her with piercing eyes, and said: "What
kind of a person are you? What sort of a devil is in you, anyway? Be
careful, Jason Philip's daughter, be careful!"
Since there was a tone of kindness in these words, the muscles of
Philippina's face moved in a mysterious way. Her features were distorted
as if by a grin, and yet she was not grinning. She drew a leather purse
from her cloak pocket, opened it, and took out two one-hundred-mark
notes and a gold coin. They had been wrapped in paper. She unfolded the
paper and the notes, laid them, together with the coin, on the table,
and handed Daniel a written statement.
He read it: "I, the undersigned, Daniel Nothafft, promise to pay to
Philippina Schimmelweis two hundred and twenty marks at five per cent
interest, for value received."
"With that you c'n pay the sheriff and git yourself out of this mess,"
said Philippina, in a most urgent tone. "You can't give piano lessons on
a rolling pin, and that music box of yours is after all the tool you
make your living by. Sign that, and you will be in peace."
"Where did you get the money?" asked Daniel. "How did you ever come by
so much money? Tell me the truth." All of a sudden he remembered
Theresa's words: "All that nice money, all that nice money!"
Philippina began to chew her finger nails. "That's none of your
business," she said gruffly, "it ain't been stolen. Moreover, I c'n tell
you," she said, as she felt that his distrust was taking on a
threatening aspect, "mother give it to me on the sly. She didn't want me
to be without a penny if anything happened. For my father--he would like
to see me strung up. She give it to me, I say, on the side, and she made
me swear before the cross that I would never let any one know about it."
This tale of horror made Daniel shake his head; he had his doubts. He
felt she was lying, and yet there was a mysterious force back of her
statement and in her eyes. He was undecided; he thought it over. His
livelihood was at stake. Weeks, months might pass by before he could get
another piano. Philippina's readiness to help him was a riddle to him,
everything she said was repulsive and banal; but after all she was
willing to help in a most substantial way, and he was in such
difficulties that voices of admonition simply had to be drowned out.
"It is nothing but money," he thought contemptuously, and sat down to
put his name to the note.
Philippina drew up her shoulders, and never once breathed until he had
signed the note and handed it over to her in silence. Then she looked at
him imploringly, and said: "Now Daniel, you must never again treat me
like you would a scurvy cat."
XV
There had been an unusual amount of talk this year about the parade on
Shrove Tuesday. On the afternoon of that day the whole city was on its
feet.
Daniel was on his way home; he had reached the corner of Theresa Street
when he ran into the crowd. He stopped out of idle curiosity. The first
division of the parade came up: it consisted of three heralds in gaudy
mediaeval costumes, and back of them were three councillors on horseback.
Next in the procession was a condemned witch on a wheelbarrow. Her face
had been hideously painted, and in her hand she swung a huge whiskey
bottle. She was followed by a group of Chinese, each with a long
pigtail, and they by a troupe of dancing Kameruns.
The procession moved on in the following order: a giant carrying
twenty-seven quart beer mugs; a woman's orchestra consisting exclusively
of old women; a wagon from one of the peasant districts bearing the
inscription, "Adorers of Taxes"; a smoking club with the Swedish match
merchant; a wagon with a replica of the Spittler Gate made of beer kegs;
the so-called guard against sparks; a nurse with a grown child in
diapers and Hussar boots; the seven Swabians on velocipedes; a cabriolet
with a gaily dressed English family; a conveyance carrying authors.
There were two inscriptions on it: "The And So Forths" and "The Et
Ceterists."
At the end of the procession was a wagon with a skilful imitation of the
Goose Man. It had been made out of old boards, hoops, clay, old rags,
and iron. The Goose Man himself wore an open velvet doublet and short
velvet trousers, from the pockets of which protruded rolls of banknotes.
Instead of a cap he had a rusty pan on his head, and on his feet was a
pair of worn patent leather shoes. Under each arm he carried a goose.
The geese had been made of dough. Their heads were not the heads of
geese but of women artificially painted and with so-called taws, or
marbles, for their eyes. The face at the Goose Man's left looked
melancholy, the one at his right was cheerful.
This was the centre of attraction; it was surrounded by the largest
crowds. Every time it came within sight of a fresh group of on-lookers
there was a tremendous shouting and waving of flags. This was true even
where it was plain that the people did not appreciate the significance
of it. Pulchinellos brandished their wooden swords, Indian chieftains
danced around it screaming their mighty war-whoops, a Mephistopheles
turned somersaults, knights mounted on stilts saluted, and children with
wax masks shrieked until it was impossible to hear one's own voice.
Daniel had watched the performance with relative indifference. He had
regarded it merely as a display of commonplace ability to amuse the
people. Then came the wagon with the imitation of the Goose Man. On it
stood Schwalbe the sculptor, gloriously drunk. Beside him stood
Kropotkin the painter in his shirt sleeves, apparently oblivious to the
fact that it was cold. A fearfully fat youth--a future school officer,
so far as could be determined from his looks--had hit upon the happy
idea of pasting the title of the _Fraenkischer Herold_ to the Goose Man's
hat. This took the initiated by storm.
Kropotkin recognised Daniel. He called to him, threw him kisses, had one
of the wooden swords given him, and went through the motion of directing
an orchestra. The fat boy hurled a handful of pretzels at the spot on
the sidewalk where Daniel was standing; a trombone began to bray; the
Englishman first stuck his head out of his cabriolet, and then got out
and hopped over to Daniel, carrying a pole draped with women's clothes,
including a feather hat and a veil. A new keg of beer was tapped on the
Gambrinus wagon, while the people in the houses rushed to the windows
and roared.
"You have forgotten the railing," cried Daniel in a loud voice to the
people on the Goose Man wagon.
"What did he say?" they asked, and looked at each other in astonishment.
The on-lookers were filled with curious silence: many of them gazed at
Daniel, bewildered.
"You forgot the railing," he repeated, with glistening eyes, "you have
forgotten the iron railing. Without his protection the poor Goose Man is
to be sure your buffoon, your zany, your clown."
He laughed quietly, and, with opened mouth and shining teeth, quickly
withdrew from the innumerable gapers. Having reached a deserted alley,
he began to sing with a frenzied expression on his face: "Whom thou dost
not desert, oh Genius, him wilt thou raise up with wings of fire. He
will wander on as if with feet of flowers across Deucalion's seas of
slime, killing Python, light-footed, famed Pythius Apollo."
XVI
A few weeks later a real singer came to Daniel. She sang several of the
songs he had written. He had thought they were completely forgotten by
everybody. Her art was not merely perfect; it was wonderful.
It was a very mysterious visit the singer paid him. One afternoon during
a fearful snow storm the bell rang; and when Gertrude opened the door,
she saw a woman wearing a heavy black veil standing before her, who said
she wished to speak to Kapellmeister Nothafft. Gertrude took her up to
Daniel's room. The stranger told Daniel she had been wishing to make his
acquaintance for a long time, and, now on her way to Italy, she had been
detained in the city for a few days by the illness of a near friend.
This, she said, she regarded as a hint from fate itself. She had come to
extend him her greetings, and particularly to thank him for his songs, a
copy of which a friend had been good enough to present to her at a time
when she was living under the weight of a great sorrow.
She spoke with an accent that had a Northern note in it, but easily and
fluently; she gave the impression of a woman who had seen a great deal
of the world and had profited by her travels. Daniel asked her with whom
he had the pleasure of speaking, but she smiled, and asked permission to
conceal her name for the present. She said that it really did not make
much difference, and that it might be more agreeable to him later to
think that an unknown woman had come to him to express her appreciation
than to recall that Fraeulein So-and-So had been there: she hoped that
her very anonymity would make a more lasting impression on his memory
than could be made by a woman of whom he knew only what everybody knows.
The mingling of the jocose and the serious, of the mind and the heart,
in the words of the stranger pleased Daniel. Though his replies were
curt and cool, it was plain that she was affording him much pleasure:
she was reminding him of the fact that his creations had not after all
sunk into an echoless abyss. In course of time, the conversation turned
again to the songs; she said she would like very much to sing some of
them for him. Daniel was pleased. He got the score, sat down at the
piano, and the enigmatic woman began to sing. At the very first note
Daniel was enraptured; he had never heard such a voice: so soft, so
pure, so emotional, so unlike the conventional product of the
conservatory. As soon as she had finished the first song, he looked up
at her in unaffected embarrassment, and murmured: "Who are you, anyhow?
Who are you?"
"No investigations or cross-questioning, please," replied the singer,
and, blushing at the praise Daniel was bestowing on her by his very
behaviour, she laughed and said, "The next song, please, that one by
Eichendorff!"
Gertrude, who had not wished to remain longer than was necessary
because of the unkempt impression she knew she made, had hastened down
to the kitchen. And now Eleanore came in, after having knocked at the
door with all imaginable timidity. She had heard the strange voice, had
rushed out into the hall, and, unable to restrain her curiosity any
longer, had come in to see the singer.
Daniel nodded to her with radiant eyes, the stranger greeted her
cordially though calmly, and then began to sing the next song; after
this she took up the third, and so on until she had sung the complete
cycle of six. Old Jordan was standing behind the door; he had his hands
pressed to his face and was listening; he was much moved.
"Well, I must be going," said the strange woman, after she had finished
the last song. She shook hands with Daniel, and said: "It has been a
beautiful hour."