The Goose Man
were voices in the storm; he felt that the horror and the memory of it
all would hurl him to the ground. But when he stood by the grave of
Eleanore, he felt his peace return. The clouds suddenly opened on the
distant horizon, and a moonbeam danced about him.
It was almost morning when he reached home.
A week later he went over to Siegmundshof and got Dorothea.
Sylvia and Dorothea came down through a snow-covered alley to meet him.
They were walking arm in arm, and Sylvia was laughing at Dorothea's
easy-flowing conversation. They seemed to be getting along perfectly
together: there could be no mistaking the picture he saw before him.
Sylvia told Daniel when she was alone with him that she had taken a
great liking to Dorothea. She remarked that her cheerfulness was
irresistible and contagious, and that when she was with children she
became a child herself.
Yet, despite all this, Sylvia studied Daniel. And when Dorothea was
present she studied her too: she cast fleeting, searching, unassured
glances at them--at Daniel and at Dorothea.
Daniel and Dorothea were married on a sunny day in December.
DOROTHEA
I
For the past fortnight, Philippina and Agnes had been living at Frau
Hadebusch's. A message came from Daniel telling Philippina that she and
Agnes should return, or, if she preferred to stay with Frau Hadebusch,
she should send Agnes home at once.
"There you have it," said Frau Hadebusch, "the master speaks."
"Ah, him--he's been speakin' to me for a long while. Much good it does
him," said Philippina. "The child stays with me, and I'm not going back.
That settles it! What, Agnes? Yes?"
Agnes was sitting on the bench by the stove with Henry the idiot,
reading the greasy pages of a cheap novel. When Philippina spoke to her,
she looked up in a distracted way and smiled. The twelve-year-old child
had a perfectly expressionless face; and as she never got out of the
house for any length of time, her skin was almost yellow.
"It ain't no use to try to buck him," continued Frau Hadebusch, who
looked as old as the mountains and resembled generally a crippled witch,
"he c'n demand the kid, and if he does he'll git her. If you ain't
careful, I'll get mixed up in the mess before long."
"Well, how do you feel about it, Agnes? Do you want to go back to your
daddy?" said Philippina, turning to the girl, and looking at Frau
Hadebusch in a knowing way.
Agnes's face clouded up. She hated her father. This was the point to
which Philippina had brought matters by her incessant whisperings and
ugly remarks behind Daniel's back. Agnes was convinced that she was a
burden to her father, and his marriage had merely confirmed what she
already felt she knew. Deep in her silent soul she carried the picture
of her prematurely deceased mother, as if it were that of a woman who
had been murdered, sacrificed. Philippina had told her how her mother
had committed suicide; it was a fearful tale in her language. It had
been the topic of conversation between her and her charge on many a
cold, dark winter evening. Agnes always said that when she was big and
could talk, she would take vengeance on her father.
When she could talk! That was her most ardent wish. For she was
silent-born. Her soul pined in a prison that was much harsher and harder
than that in which her mother's soul had been housed and harassed.
Gertrude had some bright moments; Agnes never. She was incapable of
enthusiasm; she could not look up. For her heart, her soul was not
merely asleep, torpid, lethargic; it was hopelessly dried up, withered.
Life was not in it.
"I am not going to those Doederleins," she said, crying.
But in the evening Daniel came over. He took Philippina to one side, and
had a serious talk with her. He explained the reasons for his getting
married a third time as well as he could without going too deeply into
the subject. "I needed a wife; I needed a woman to keep house for me; I
needed a companion. Philippina, I am very grateful to you for what you
have done, but there must also be a woman in my home who can cheer me
up, turn my thoughts to higher things. I have a heavy calling; that you
cannot appreciate. So don't get stubborn, Philippina. Pack up your
things, and come back home. How can we get along without you?"
For the first time in his life he spoke to her as though she were a
woman and a human being. Philippina stared at him. Then she burst out
into a loud, boisterous laugh, and began to show her whole supply of
scorn. "Jesus, Daniel, how you c'n flatter a person! Who'd a thought it!
You've always been such a sour dough. Very well. Say: 'Dear Philippina!'
Say it real slow: 'D-e-a-r Philippina,' and then I'll come."
Daniel looked into the face of the girl, who never did seem young and
who had aged fearfully in the last few months. "Nonsense!" he cried, and
turned away.
Philippina stamped the floor with her foot. Henry, the idiot, came out
into the hall, holding a lamp above his head.
"Does the sanctimonious clerk still live here?" asked Daniel, looking up
at the crooked old stairway, while a flood of memories came rushing over
him.
"Thank God, no!" snarled Philippina. "He'd be the last straw. I feel
sick at the stomach when I see a man."
Daniel again looked into her detestable, ugly, distorted, and wicked
face. He was accustomed to question everything, eyes and bodies, about
their existence in terms of tones, or their transformation into tones.
Here he suddenly felt the toneless; he had the feeling one might have on
looking at a deep-sea fish: it is lifeless, toneless. He thought of his
Eva; he longed for his Eva. Just then Agnes came out of the door to look
for Philippina.
He laid his hand on Agnes's hair, and said good-naturedly, looking at
Philippina: "Well, then--d-e-a-r Philippina, come back home!"
Agnes jerked herself away from him; he looked at the child amazed; he
was angry, too. Philippina folded her hands, bowed her head, and
murmured with much humility: "Very well, Daniel, we'll be back
to-morrow."
II
Philippina arrived at the front door at ten o'clock in the morning. In
one hand she carried her bundle; by the other she led Agnes, then
studying her _milieu_ with uneasy eyes.
Dorothea opened the door. She was neatly and tastefully dressed: she
wore a blue gingham dress and a white apron with a lace border. Around
her neck was a gold chain, and suspended from the chain a medallion.
"Oh, the children!" she cried cheerfully, "Philippina and Agnes. What do
you think of that! God bless you, children. You are home at last." She
wanted to hug Agnes, but the child pulled away from her as timidly as
she had pulled away from her father yesterday. In either case, she
pulled away!
Philippina screwed her mouth into a knot on hearing a woman ten years
her junior call her a child; she looked at Dorothea from head to foot.
Dorothea scarcely noticed her. "Just imagine, Philippin', the cook
didn't come to-day, so I thought I would try my own hand," said Dorothea
with glib gravity, "but I don't know, the soup meat is still as hard as
a rock. Won't you come and see what's the matter?" She took Philippina
into the kitchen.
"Ah, you've got to have a lid on the pot, and what's more, that ain't a
regular fire," remarked Philippina superciliously.
Dorothea had already turned to something else. She had found a glass of
preserved fruit, had opened it, taken a long-handled spoon, dived into
it, put the spoon to her mouth, and was licking away for dear life.
"Tastes good," she said, "tastes like lemon. Try it, Philippin'." She
held the spoon to Philippina's lips so that she could try it. Philippina
thrust the spoon rudely to one side.
"No, no, you have got to try it. I insist. Taste it!" continued
Dorothea, and poked the spoon tightly against Philippina's lips. "I
insist, I insist," she repeated, half beseechingly, half in the tone of
a command, so that Philippina, who somehow or other could not find her
veteran power of resistance, and in order to have peace, let the spoon
be shoved into her mouth.
Just then old Jordan came out into the hall, and with him the
chimney-sweeper who wished to clean the chimney.
"Herr Inspector, Herr Inspector," cried Dorothea, laughing; and when the
old man followed her call, she gave him a spoonful, too. The
chimney-sweep likewise; he had to have his. And last but not least came
Agnes.
They all laughed; a faint smile even ventured across Agnes's pale face,
while Daniel, frightened from his room by the hubbub, came out and stood
in the kitchen door and laughed with the rest.
"Do you see, Daniel, do you see? They all eat out of my hand," said
Dorothea contentedly. "They all eat out of my hand. That's the way I
like to have things. To your health, folks!"
III
One afternoon Dorothea, with an open letter in her hand, came rushing
into Daniel's room, where he was working.
"Listen, Daniel, Frau Feistelmann invites me over to a party at her
house to-morrow. May I go?"
"You are disturbing me, my dear. Can't you see you are upsetting me?"
asked Daniel reproachfully.
"Oh, I see," breathed Dorothea, and looked helplessly at the stack of
scores that lay on the top of the table. "I am to take my violin along
and play a piece or two for the people."
Daniel gazed into space without being able to comprehend her remarks. He
was composing.
Dorothea lost her patience. She stepped up to the place on the wall
where the mask of Zingarella had been hanging since his return home.
"Daniel, I have been wanting for some time to ask you what that thing
is. Why do you keep it there? What's it for? It annoys me with its
everlasting grin."
Daniel woke up. "That is what you call a grin?" he asked, shaking his
head; "Is it possible? That smile from the world beyond appeals to you
as a grin?"
"Yes," replied Dorothea defiantly, "the thing is grinning. And I don't
like it; I can't stand that silly face; I don't like it simply because
you do like it so much. In fact, you seem to like it better than you do
me."
"No childishness, Dorothea!" said Daniel quietly. "You must get your
mind on higher things; and you must respect my spirits."
Dorothea became silent. She did not understand him. She looked at him
with a touch of distrust. She thought the mask was a picture of one of
his old sweethearts. She made a mouth.
"You said something about playing at the party, Dorothea," continued
Daniel. "Do you realise that I never heard you play? I will frankly
confess to you that heretofore I have been afraid to hear you. I could
tolerate only the excellent; or the promise of excellence. You may show
both; and yet, what is the cause of my fear? You have not practised in a
long while; not once since we have been living together. And yet you
wish to play in public? That is strange, Dorothea. Be so good as to get
your violin and play a piece for me, won't you?"
Dorothea went into the next room, got her violin case, came out, took
the violin, and began to rub the bow with rosin. As she was tuning the
A string, she lifted her eyebrows and said: "Do you really want me to
play?"
She bit her lips and played an _etude_ by Fiorillo. Having finished it
but not having drawn a word of comment from Daniel, she again took up
the violin and played a rather lamentable selection by Wieniawski.
Daniel maintained his silence for a long while. "Pretty good, Dorothea,"
he said at last. "You have, other things being equal, a very pleasant
pastime there."
"What do you mean?" asked Dorothea with noticeable rapidity, a heavy
blush colouring her cheeks.
"Is it anything more than that, Dorothea?"