The Goose Man
accustomed to do, he wrapped himself in a silence that could not be
regarded as a favourable omen.
Eberhard had no desire to beg. Herr Carovius's personality was so
disagreeable to him that he refused to investigate the cause of his
novel behaviour. He let his thoughts take their own course; and they
drifted into other channels.
The gossip afloat concerning Eleanore had naturally reached his ears.
Herr Carovius had seen to it that there was no lack of insinuations,
either written or oral. But Eberhard had ignored them. Offensive insults
that had dared attach themselves to Eleanore seemed to him as incredible
as litter from the street on the radiant moon.
One day he had to call on Herr Carovius because of a note that had been
protested. They discussed the affair in a dry, business-like way, and
then, all of a sudden, Herr Carovius fixed his piercing eyes on the
Baron, walked around the table time after time, dressed in his sleeping
gown, and told, without the omission of a single detail, of the
lamentable death of Daniel Nothafft's young wife.
He became highly excited; why, it would be hard to say. "Let us hope
that the Kapellmeisterette will come to his senses now," he cried in a
falsetto voice. "He is already on the point of starvation; ah, believe
me, he is nearly done for. It will be necessary to take up a collection
for the unrecognised genius. He has already put one of his women in the
grave, the other is still kicking. By the way, how do you like her, the
angel? Are you not a bit sorry for the neat little halo that now hangs
like a piece of castoff clothing on the bedpost of an adulteress? Of
course, geniuses are allowed to do as they please. O Eleanore, bloody
lie that you are, you hypocritical soft, sneaking, slimy lie--Eleanore!"
With that Eberhard stepped up very calmly to the unleashed demon in
pajamas, seized him by the throat, and held him with such a fierce and
unrelenting grip that Herr Carovius sank to his knees, while his face
became as blue as a boiled carp. After this he was remarkably quiet; he
crept away. At times he tittered like a simpleton; at times a venomous
glance shot forth from under his eyelids. But that was all.
Eberhard poured some water in a basin, dipped his hands in it, dried
them, and went away.
The picture of the whining man with the puffed and swollen eyes and the
blue face was indelibly stamped on Eberhard's memory. He had felt a
greedy, voluptuous desire to commit murder. He felt he was not merely
punishing and passing final judgment on his own tormentor and
persecutor, but on the hidden enemy of humanity, the arch-criminal of
the age, the destroyer of all noble seed.
And yet the exalted outburst of Herr Carovius had precisely the effect
that Eberhard had least expected. His confidence in Eleanore's innocence
had been shaken. There may have been in Herr Carovius's voice, despite
the slanderous wrath with which his cowardly tongue was coated,
something that sounded truer than the wretch himself suspected. Eberhard
saw just then, for the first time in his life, the adored figure of the
girl as a human being like all other human beings; and as if through a
distant vision he experienced in his heart what had taken place.
His illusions were destroyed.
In his soul he had gone through the trials of renunciation long ago. His
passionate wishes of former times had gone through a process of
weakening from loss of blood. He had learned to bow to the inevitable;
he had made a special effort to acquire this bit of earthly wisdom. When
he surveyed the life he had lived in the past five years, it resembled,
despite its flux and the incessant change from city to city and country
to country, a sojourn in a room with closed doors and drawn shades.
When he had returned to the city, which he loved simply because Eleanore
lived in it, he had had no intention of reminding Eleanore of the
expiration of the time mutually agreed upon. He felt that it would be a
banal display of poor taste to appear before her once again as an
awkward, jilted suitor, and try to reconnect the thread where it had
been so ruthlessly broken five years ago. He had intended not to disturb
her or worry her in any way. But to go to her and speak with her, that
had been the one bright ray of hope in all these empty years.
After the scene with Herr Carovius he decided quite firmly to keep away
from Eleanore.
His ready cash had shrunk to a few hundred marks. He discharged his
servants, disposed of some of his jewelry, and rented one of those
little houses that are stuck on the rocks up by the castle like so many
wasp nests. The house he took had been occupied before him by the
Pfragners, and with its three rooms was not much larger than a
fair-sized cage in a menagerie. But he had taken it into his head to
live there, and that was all there was to it. He bought some old
furniture, and adorned the slanting walls of the dilapidated barracks
with such pictures as he had.
One evening there was a knock at the green door of the cottage. Eberhard
opened, and saw Herr Carovius standing before him.
Herr Carovius entered the Baron's doll house, looked around in
astonishment, and, pale as a sheet, said: "So help me God, it seems to
me you are trying to play the role of a hermit. This won't do; this is
no place for a Baron; I will not stand for it."
Eberhard reached for the book he had been reading, a volume of Carl du
Prel, and read on without replying to Herr Carovius or even taking
notice of the fact that he was present.
Herr Carovius tripped from one foot to the other. "Perhaps the Baron
will be so good as to take a look at his account," he said in a
beseeching tone. "I am in a tight place. My capital is gone, and my
debts in the shape of interest have been swelling like the Pegnitz in
the spring of the year. Would you like to know what I have been living
on for the last three months? I have been living on turnips, potato
peelings, and brick cheese; that has been my daily diet; and I have
submitted to it for the sake of my Baron."
"I am not a bit interested in what you have been eating," said the Baron
arrogantly, and kept on reading.
Herr Carovius continued with an imbecile sulk: "When you left me
recently because of that little quarrel we had about the Goose Man, it
never occurred to me that you were going to take the matter so
seriously. Lovers like to be teased, I thought. He'll come back, I
thought, he'll come back just as sure as laughter follows tickling.
Well, I was mistaken. I thought you were of a more gentle disposition,
and that you would be more indulgent with an old friend. Yes, we make
mistakes sometimes."
Eberhard remained silent.
Herr Carovius sighed, and sat down timidly on the narrow edge of the
sofa that stood next to the whitewashed wall. He sat there for almost an
hour in perfect silence. Eberhard appreciated neither the ridiculous nor
the fantastic element in the conduct of his guest. He read on.
And then, all of a sudden, Herr Carovius sprang to his feet, took his
wallet from his pocket, drew out a thousand-mark note, and laid it,
together with a blank receipt, across the page Eberhard was reading.
Before the Baron could recover from his amazement he had already
disappeared, closing the door behind him. The sound of his footsteps on
the street could be heard in the room; but he was gone.
What rare living creatures there are, O World, and what rare dead ones,
too! This is the thought that passed through Eberhard's mind.
IX
That two men as radically different by nature as Eberhard and Daniel
chanced to meet and be drawn together at the very period of their lives
when both had voluntarily renounced human society was due to one of
those decrees of Providence that contain in them either a law of
crystallisation or the attraction of polar forces, however much they may
seem to be matters of pure chance.
Their coming together took place on the day after Daniel had gone to
Eschenbach. At the break of day, Daniel had decided to return by way of
Schwabach, both for the sake of variety and because this was the shorter
route. The sun was hotter than on the day before; and when it had
reached the height of its ability to dry up the land and scorch a human
being, Daniel lay down in the forests. Late in the afternoon, just as he
was approaching Schwabach, great black clouds began to gather in the
West; a fearful storm was evidently to be expected. Heavy streaks of
lightning flashed across the sky; and although Daniel tried to hasten
his steps, the storm overtook him. Before he could reach the shelter of
a house, he was wet to the skin from head to foot.
The rain came down in torrents. He waited a long while, and then had to
start out in it again, arriving finally at the station shivering with
cold. As he went to buy his ticket he noticed a lean, haggard, unusual
looking individual standing at the ticket window. It is quite probable
that, vexed by his uncomfortable condition, Daniel treated him none too
courteously; he pushed up against him, whereupon the man turned around,
and Daniel recognised the young Baron, Eberhard von Auffenberg. Eberhard
in turn recognised Daniel. It is unlikely that there was at that time
another face in the world which could belong so completely to just one
person as that of Daniel.
The Baron had been attracted to Schwabach by his affection for a certain
person there, an affection he had preserved from the days of his
childhood. There lived in Schwabach at the time a woman who had been his
nurse. Her undivided and resigned love for him was touching. She was as
proud of him as she might have been had she been able to say that in him
she had been responsible for the childhood training of the noblest
specimen of manhood known to human history. And he was fond of her; the
stories she told him he could still recall, and he did recall them
frequently and with pleasure. She had married the foreman of a tin mill,
and had sons and daughters of her own. Eberhard had been planning for
years to visit her. This visit had now been paid. But Eberhard could not
say that he had derived extraordinary pleasure from it: it had taken an
inner figure from his soul. And, on the other hand, whether the nurse
felt, on seeing the tall, lank, stiff, and ill-humoured foster son, that
enraptured charm she so much liked to conjure up before her imagination,
is a question that had better remain unanswered.
When Eberhard became aware of the condition in which Daniel then found
himself, his feelings of chivalry were moved. With the dauntless courage
of which he was capable, he subdued the apathy he had cherished toward
Daniel ever since he first came to know him, and to which actual
detestation and disquieting jealousy had been added a few weeks ago.
"You have been out in the rain," said Eberhard courteously, but with a
reserve that was rigid if not quite forbidding or impenetrable.
"I look like it, don't I?" said Daniel with a scowl.
"You will catch cold if you are not careful. May I offer you my top
coat?" continued Eberhard more courteously. He felt as if he could see
the figure of Eleanore rising up behind Daniel, that she was quite
surrounded by flowers, and that she was smiling at him in joy and
gratitude. He bit his lips and blushed.
Daniel shook his head: "I am accustomed to all kinds of weather. Thank
you."
"Well, then, at least wrap this around your neck; the water is running
down your back." Thereupon Eberhard reached him a white silk kerchief he
drew from the pocket of his coat. Daniel make a wry face, but took the
kerchief, threw it about his neck, and tied it in a knot under his chin.
"You are right," he admitted, and drew his head down between his