The Goose Man
on a great divan, overcome--for the time being--with worry and maternal
weakness. A grin strayed across Herr Carovius's face. He twirled his
Calabrian headpiece in his hands, and let his leery eyes wander about
the walls. Then it was that he caught sight of Dorothea, whom he had
thus far failed to see in his intoxication of wrath and rapture.
When Herr Carovius entered, Dorothea, out of discretion rather than with
serious intent, had made herself as small as possible in the most remote
corner of the room. Trembling with curious excitement, she had wished to
evade the eye of her uncle Carovius, for in very truth she was ashamed
of him.
She regarded him as a sort of comic freak, who, though he had enough to
live on, could not be said to be in the best of circumstances. When he
rolled the sum the Auffenberg family owed him from his tongue, she was
filled with astonishment and delight, and from then on she took a
totally different view of him.
During the last few years Herr Carovius had seen very little of
Dorothea. Whenever he had met her, she had passed by him in great haste.
He knew that she was taking violin lessons: he had often heard her
screechy fiddling on the stairs and out in the hall.
He fixed his eyes on her, and exclaimed: "Well I'm a son-of-a-gun if
there isn't Doederlein's daughter! How did you get here? Aha, you are
going about and showing the people what you can do! I should think you
and your creator would have had enough of music by this time."
The Baroness, recalling that the young girl was present, raised her
eyes and looked at Dorothea reproachfully. For the first time in her
life she felt that the resources she had managed to extract from a life
of neglect were about exhausted; for the first time in her life she felt
a shudder at the thought of her musical stupefactions.
She asked Herr Carovius to have patience, adding that he would hear from
her in a few days--as soon as she had talked the matter over with her
husband. She nipped in the bud a zealous reply he was about to make, and
nodded a momentary farewell to Dorothea, who put her violin in the case,
took the case in her hand, curtsied, and followed her uncle out of the
room.
She remained at his side; they went along the street together. Herr
Carovius turned to her from time to time, and made some rancorous
remark. She smiled modestly.
With that began the strange relation that existed between the two from
then on.
II
It had looked for some time as though the Baron von Auffenberg had
retired from the political stage. In circles in which he had formerly
been held in unqualified esteem he was now regarded as a fallen hero.
His friends traced the cause of his failure to the incessant friction
from which the party had suffered; to the widespread change that was
taking place in the public mind; to the ever-increasing pressure from
above and the never-ceasing fermentation from below; to the feverish
restlessness that had come over the body politic, changing its form, its
ideals, and its convictions; and to the more scrupulous and sometimes
reactionary stand that was being taken on all matters of national
culture.
But this could not explain the hard trace of repulsion and aversion
which the Baron's countenance had never before revealed when in the
presence of men; it threw no light, or at most an inadequate light, on
the stony glare, gloomy impatience, and reticence which he practised now
even in those circles and under those circumstances in which he had
formerly been noted for his diverting talents as a conversationalist and
companion.
In his heart of hearts he had, as a matter of fact, always despised his
political constituents, their speeches, their action, their enthusiasm,
and their indignation. But he had never kicked over the traces, for
during the course of a rather eventful life he had made the discovery
that contempt and an icy disposition are invaluable adjuncts to any one
who wishes to control men.
Even though he had fought at the beginning of his career with all the
eloquence and buoyancy at his command for freedom and tolerance, it
remained a fact that he regarded liberalism as nothing more than a
newspaper term, a means of keeping men busy who were too indolent to
think for themselves, and a source of obstructive annoyance to the
openly hated but secretly admired Bismarck.
He had wielded a power in full consciousness of the lie he was acting,
and had done it solely by gestures, calculations, and political
adroitness. This will do for a while, but in time it eats into the
marrow of one's life.
In his eyes nothing was of value except the law, unwritten to be sure,
but of immemorial duration, that subjects the little to the big, the
weak to the strong, the immature to the experienced, the poor to the
rich. In accordance with this law humanity for him was divided into two
camps: those who submitted to the law, and the undesirable citizens who
rebelled against the law.
And of these undesirable citizens his son Eberhard was the most
undesirable.
With this stinging, painful thorn in his flesh, oppressed by the feeling
of loneliness in the very midst of a noisy, fraudulent activity, and
filled with an ever-increasing detestation of the superfluity and
consequent effeminacy of his daily existence, he had created out of the
figure of his son a picture of evil incarnate.
He visualised him in dissipation and depravity of every kind and degree;
he saw him sinking lower and lower, a traitor to his family name; as if
in a dream that appeases the sense of obscene horror, he saw him in
league with the abandoned and proscribed, associating with thieves,
street bandits, high-flying swindlers, counterfeiters, anarchists,
prostitutes, and literati. He saw him in dirty dives, a fugitive from
justice wandering along the highway, drunk in a gambling den, a beggar
at a fair, and a prisoner at the bar.
His determination to wait until the degenerate representative of the
human family had been stigmatised by all the world he finally abandoned.
His impatience to find peace, to throw off the mask, to rid himself
completely of all entanglements, dissimulation, and the life of luxury
to which he had been accustomed became so great, that he looked forward
to the day that would eventually mark his release as the day of a new
birth.
But why did he hesitate? Was there still an element of doubt in his
breast? Was there still slumbering, deep down in the regions of his
heart that were inaccessible to bitterness and revenge, another picture
of his son? Why did he hesitate from week to week, from month to month?
In the meantime he had donated great fortunes to poor houses, hospitals,
foundations, and similar causes. He wanted to give away other millions,
at least so much that his heirs would receive only the gleanings of what
had once been a field of riches. Emilia was to be given the income from
the breweries and the country estates.
To this extent he had firmly made up his mind. Now that his wife had
told him of the actual condition in which Eberhard found himself, he
felt justified in going ahead and carrying out his pre-determined plans.
The proofs of dishonourable conduct on the part of his son could now be
brought forward. The debts he had contracted, either through flippancy
or downright deception, in the name of his father were sufficient to
condemn him forever. And if not, then let them fight it out after he was
dead and gone; let his last will and testament be a ghost, a spectre
that would strike terror into their hearts and embitter such pleasure as
they might otherwise derive from life.
His will had been drawn up seven years ago; all that was needed was the
signature of the notary public.
But why did the Baron hesitate? Why did he pace back and forth in his
room with pinched lips? Why did he ring for the butler with the idea of
sending this functionary for the notary, and then suddenly change his
mind and give the butler something else to do?
_"Depeche-toi, mon bon garcon_," screeched the parrot.
III
In the course of three days the Baroness had five talks with her
husband. Each time he rejected her petition to have the affairs of their
son straightened out; and when she became insistent and seemed minded to
keep up her fight, he became silent, speechless.
It was during her last attempt that the servants heard her speaking with
extraordinary passion and violence. When she left the Baron's room her
whole body was quivering with emotion and excitement. She came out, and
ordered the house servants to pack her trunk and her coachman to be
ready to leave in a few minutes.
An hour later she was on her way to the estate at Siegmundshof, about
ten miles from the baronial residence. Her maid accompanied her. But she
was utterly unable to find peace there. During the day she would pace
back and forth through the rooms, crying and wringing her hands; at
night she would lie down, but not to sleep. On the fourth day she
returned to the city, had the carriage driven to the residence of Count
Urlich, and sent her coachman in to get the Countess. Emilia came down,
terrified, to know what her mother wanted. The Baroness told her that
she wished her to accompany her to Herr Carovius, whose address she had
found in the city directory.
Herr Carovius had waited in vain for the news the Baroness had promised
him. His anger got the best of him: he decided to make an example of the
Auffenberg family, and, with this end in view, entered their house as
the personal embodiment of punitive justice. When he was told that he
could not be admitted, he began once more to start trouble; he raged and
stormed like a madman. The servants came running out from all quarters;
finally a policeman appeared on the scene and questioned him. The porter
then dragged him from the house and out through the big gate at the
entrance to the grounds, where he stood surrounded by a crowd of curious
but not entirely disinterested people, bare-headed, waving his arms and
striking an imaginary adversary with his fists--a picture, all told, of
anger intensified to the point of insanity.
His backers at once got wind of his fruitless attempts to collect. They
became uneasy, gave Herr Carovius himself a deal of trouble, and finally
appointed a lawyer to take charge of the case. In the meantime Herr
Carovius had learned through a spy that it had come to a complete break
between the Baron and the Baroness, that the latter had left within two
days with bag and baggage, and that great consternation prevailed among
the servants and friends of the family.
A voluptuous light crept across Herr Carovius's face: here was defeat
and despair, weeping and gnashing of teeth; what more could he wish? He
felt that he was personally the annihilator of the collective
aristocracy. And if it is possible to take a fiendish delight in
witnessing the destruction of what one after all despises, how much
greater may this joy be when the thing destroyed is something one loves
and admires!
It was while in this mood that the Baroness and her daughter came to see
him. The sight of the two women left him momentarily speechless. He
forgot to say good-day to them; to ask them in never once occurred to
him.
The Baroness wanted to know where Eberhard was: she was determined to
see him. When Herr Carovius stuttered out the astounding information to
her that he was living hardly more than three hundred paces from where
she was then standing, she began to tremble and leaned against the wall.
She was not prepared for this: she had always imagined that he was
staying at some mysterious place in some mysterious distance.
Herr Carovius at once insisted that he accompany the ladies to the