The Goose Man
ever happened. The roses her serious and moneyed admirers brought her
she picked to pieces in their very presence, and threw the pieces in the
waste-paper basket. Doederlein would lecture her in the kindest and most
intelligent way on good morals and gentle manners, and she would listen
as though she were a saint. Five minutes later she would be hanging out
of the window, flirting with the barber's boy across the street.
"I am an unfortunate father," said Andreas Doederlein to himself, when,
apart from all his other multifarious worries, he began to be sceptical
about Dorothea's artistic ability. Shortly after her success in
Nuremberg, she gave a concert in Frankfort, but everything was pretty
quiet. Then she toured the small towns of central Germany, and was
received everywhere with the greatest enthusiasm. But what of it? How
much critical acumen is to be found in such places?
One evening she was at the home of a certain Frau Feistelmann, a woman
whose past had some connection with nearly every scandal of the city.
While there she met an actor by the name of Edmund Hahn. Herr Hahn had
soft, blonde hair and a pale, bloated face. He was rather tall and had
long legs. Dorothea raved about long legs. There was a thoroughly
sensual atmosphere about the man; he devoured Dorothea with his impudent
eyes. His build, his bearing, his half blase, half emphatic way of
speaking made an impression on Dorothea. He sat next to her at the
table, and began to rub his feet against hers. Finally he succeeded in
getting his left foot on her slipper. She tried to pull her foot back,
but the more she tried the harder he bore down on it. She looked at him
in amazement; but he smiled cynically, and in a few minutes they were
desperately intimate. After dinner they withdrew to a hidden corner, and
you could hear Dorothea giggling.
They arranged to meet each other on a certain street corner in the dark.
He sent her free tickets to "Maria Stuart" and "Die Raeuber." He played
the roles of Mortimer and Kosinsky; he roared till you thought the roof
would fall in. He introduced Dorothea to a number of his friends, and
these brought their girl friends along, and they all sat in the Nassau
Cellar till break of day. Among them was a certain Samuelsky, an employe
of the Reutlinger Bank. He had the manners of a man about town, drank
champagne, and went mad over Dorothea. She submitted to his attention,
welcomed it in fact, and accepted presents from him, though, as it
seemed, not until she had received the permission from Edmund Hahn. Once
he tried to kiss her: she gave him a ringing box on the ears. He wiped
his cheek, and called her a siren.
She liked the expression. At times she would stand before the mirror,
and whisper: "Siren."
When Andreas Doederlein heard of what was going on, he had an attack of
mad rage. "I will put you out of the house," he exclaimed, "I will beat
you until you are a helpless, despicable cripple." But in his eyes there
was again the trace of that suppressed fear that gave the lie to his
seeming berserker rage.
"An artist does not need to adapt her morals to the code of the
Philistine," remarked Dorothea, with complete imperturbability. "Those
are all nice people with whom I am going. Every one of them is a
gentleman."
A gentleman: that was an argument against which it was futile to enter a
caveat. In her eyes that man was a gentleman who ran risks, impressed
waiters and coachmen, and wore creased trousers. "No one dares come too
close to me," she said with much pride. That was the truth; no one had
thus far awakened her deepest curiosity, and she had determined to put a
high price on herself. Edmund Hahn was the only one who had any
influence on her; and this was true of him because he was absolutely
devoid of feeling, and had a type of shamelessness that completely
disarmed and terrified her.
Andreas Doederlein had to let her have her way. If he had any consolation
at all, it lay in the belief on his part that a real Doederlein would
never voluntarily come to grief. If Dorothea was a genuine Doederlein,
she would march straight to her objective, and take by storm the good
and useful things of life. If she failed, it would be proof that there
was a flaw somewhere in her birth. This was his logic; and having
applied it, theoretically, he enshrouded himself in the clouds of his
Olympus.
Dorothea gave her uncle Carovius, however, detailed accounts of how she
was making her suitors, young and old, walk the war-path. They all had
to do it, the actor and the banker, the candle manufacturer and the
engineer. She said she was leading the whole pack of them around by the
nose. Herr Carovius's face beamed with joy when he heard her say this.
He called her his little jackanapes, and said she was the fortune of his
old age. To himself he said that she was a genuine Carovius destined to
great deeds.
"You don't have to get married," he said with the urge of a zealot of
old, and rubbed his hands. "Oh, of course, if a Count comes along with a
few millions and a castle in the background, why, you might think it
over. But just let some greasy comedian get it into his head that he is
going to steal you away from me! Or let some wabbly-hipped office-boy
imagine for a minute that he is going to drag you into his circle along
with his other unwashed acquaintances! If this ever happens, Dorothea,
give it to 'em hot and heavy! Show the wanton satyrs what kind of blood
you have in you."
"Ah, Uncle," said Dorothea, "I know you mean well by me. You are the
only one who does. But if I were only not so poor! Look at me! Look at
this dress I have on! It's a sight!" And she put her head in her
uplifted arm and sobbed.
Herr Carovius pulled at his moustaches, moved his eyebrows up and down,
went to his writing desk, opened his strong box, took out a hundred-mark
bill, and gave it to her with turned head, as if he were afraid of the
wrath of the protecting spirit of the money chest.
This was the state of affairs when Daniel met the youthful Dorothea in
Herr Carovius's home, and went away with an unforgettable,
unextinguishable picture of her in his soul.
XIII
Daniel's approaching fortieth birthday seemed like a sombre portal
leading to the realm of spent ambition. "Seize what remains to be
seized," a voice within him cried. "Grass is growing on the graves."
His senses were at war with his intellect and his heart. He had never
looked on women as he was looking on them now.
One day he went out to Siegmundshof. Eberhard was not at home. Sylvia's
face showed traces of subdued sadness. She had three children, each one
more beautiful than the other, but when her eyes rested on them her
heart was filled with grief. Women whose married life is unhappy have
dull, lifeless features; their hands are transparent and yellow.
Daniel took leave more quickly than he had wished or intended. He felt
an egoistic aversion to the joyless sons of man.
He went to see Herr Carovius. The laughing one whom he sought was not at
home.
Herr Carovius looked at him at times distrustfully. The face of his
former foe set him to thinking. It was furrowed like a field under
cultivation and burnt like a hearthstone. It was the face of a criminal,
crabbed, enervated, tense, and breathed upon, it seemed, by threatening
clouds. Herr Carovius was a connoisseur of faces.
In order to avoid the discomfort of fatuous conversation, Daniel played
a number of old motetts for Herr Carovius. Herr Carovius was so pleased
that he ran into his pantry, and got a half dozen Boxdorf apples and put
them in Daniel's pockets. He bought these apples every autumn by the
peck, and cherished them as so many priceless treasures.
"At the sound of such music it would not be difficult to become a real
Christian," he said.
"There is spring in them," said Daniel, "they are art that is as
innocent as new seed in the soil. But your piano needs tuning."
"Symbolic, symbolic, my dear friend," cried Herr Carovius, and puffed
out his cheeks. "But you come back another time, and you will find it in
the pink of condition. Come frequently, please. You will reap the reward
of Heaven if you do."
Herr Carovius begging for company; it was touching. Daniel promised to
bring some of the manuscripts he had been collecting along with him.
When he returned a few days later, Dorothea was there; and from then on
she was always there. His visits became longer and longer. When Herr
Carovius noticed that Dorothea was coming to see him more frequently
now, he moved heaven and earth to persuade Daniel to come more
frequently. He rained reproach and abuse on him if he failed to come; if
he was late, he greeted him with a sour face and put indiscreet
questions to him. When he was alone of an afternoon, time stood still.
He was like a drinker tantalised by seeing his accustomed portion of
brandy on the table but just beyond his reach. The company of these two
people, Daniel and Dorothea, had become as indispensable to his
happiness as in former years the reading of the newspapers, the brethren
of the Vale of Tears, the troubles of Eberhard and the funerals were
indispensable if he were to feel at ease. It is the way of the small
citizen: each of his customs becomes a passion.
When Daniel played the old chorals, Dorothea listened quietly, though it
could not be said that she was perfect at concealing her tedium.
One time they began talking about Dorothea's violin playing. Herr
Carovius asked her to play something. She declined without the slightest
display of affectation. Daniel said nothing to encourage her; he found
that this modesty was becoming to her; he believed that he detected
wisdom and resignation in her behaviour; he smiled at her graciously.
"Tell us a story, Daniel," she said, "that would be better." It
eventually came out that that was what she had wanted all along.
"I am a poor raconteur," said Daniel. "I have a thick tongue."
She begged him, however, with stammering words and beseeching gestures.
Herr Carovius tittered. Daniel took off his glasses, polished them, and
looked at the young girl with squinting eyes. It seemed as if the
glasses had made it difficult for him to see Dorothea distinctly, or as
if he preferred to see her indistinctly. "I really don't know what I
could tell in the way of a story," he replied, shaking his head.
"Tell us everything, anything," cried Dorothea, seized with a veritable
fit of eagerness to hear him talk. She stretched out her hands toward
him: that seemed to him to be so like a child. He had never told stories
to a child; he had never in truth told stories to any one. Gertrude and
Eleanore had, to be sure, forced a confession or a complaint from him at
times, but that was all, and all that was necessary or appropriate.
Suddenly he was drawn on by the word in which his fate would be quietly
reflected; by the fiery young eye in the brilliancy of which the complex
became simple, the dark bright; by the wicked old man to whom the whole
world, as seen from his mire, had become a poisonous food.
And with his brittle, staccato voice he told of the countries through
which he had journeyed; of the sea and the cities by the sea; of the
Alps and the Alpine lakes; of cathedrals, palaces, and marvellous
monasteries; of the queer people he had met, of his work and his
loneliness. It was all incoherent, arid, and loveless. Though sorely
tempted, he desisted from mentioning things that came close to his soul;
things that moved his heart, fired his brain. When he told of the
Jewess, the Swallow, he did not even finish the sentence. He made a long
pause, and then shifted to the account of his visit to Eschenbach. Here
he stopped again before he was through.