The Goose Man
plant preparations, and this despite the fact that the entire fruit of
my first seven years of effort was burned in a tent near Nembos. But
apart from what I have actually done, there is something so real and
solemn about such a life. You live with the sky above you and savages
round about you. These savages are like children. This state of affairs
is, to be sure, being rapidly changed: Europe is breathing its pest into
the paradise. The wiles and weaknesses of these savages are in a way
touching; you feel sorry for them as you feel sorry for a dumb, harassed
beast. I had taken a boy along with me from the boundless, primeval
forests north of the Congo. He was a little bit of a fellow, almost a
dwarf. I liked him; I even loved him. And obedient! I merely had to make
a sign, and he was ready. Well, we came back to the Italian lakes, where
I wished to remain for a while for the sake of the climate before
returning to England. What happened? At the sight of the snow-covered
mountain peaks he was seized with deathly fear; he became homesick; and
in a few days he died of pneumonia."
"Why is it that there was such a long period that we never heard from
you?" asked Daniel, with a timidity and shyness that made Benda's heart
ache.
"That is a long story," said Benda. "It took me two years to get through
that fearful forest and out to a lake called Albert-Nyanza. From there I
wanted to get over to Egypt, but the country was in a state of
revolution and was occupied by the soldiers of the Mahdi. I was forced
to take the route to the Northwest, ran into a pathless wilderness, and
for five years was a captive of a tribe of the Wadai. The Niam-Niam, who
were at war with the Wadai, liberated me. I could move about with
relative freedom among them, but I could not go beyond their boundaries,
for they held me in high esteem as a medicine man and were afraid I
would bewitch them if I ever got out of their personal control. I had
lost my guides, and I had no money to hire new ones. The things I
needed, because of the delicacy of my constitution, as compared with
theirs, I secured through the chieftain from a band of Arabian
merchants. This was all very well so far as it went, but the chieftain
was careful to keep me concealed from the Arabs. I finally succeeded in
coming into personal touch with a Sheik to whom I could make myself
understood. It was high time, for I could not have stood it another
year."
Daniel was silent. It was all so strange; he could hardly adapt himself
to Benda's voice and manner. Memory failed him. The world of Benda was
all too foreign, unknown to him. What he himself felt had no weight with
his friend; it did not even have meaning. With the old sense of dim
defiance, he coaxed the ghost of disappointment into his soul; and his
soul was weighed down by the nocturnal darkness like the glass of his
window.
"Now I am enjoying my home," said Benda thoughtfully, "I am enjoying a
milder light, a more ordered civilisation. I have come to look upon
Germany as a definite figure, to love it as a composite picture. Nature,
really great, grand nature such as formerly seemed beyond the reach of
my longings, such as constituted my idea, my presentiment of perfection,
I have experienced in person; I have lived it. It enticed me, taught me,
and almost destroyed me. All human organisation, on the contrary, has
developed more and more into an idea. In hours that were as full of the
feeling of things as the heart is full of blood, I have seen the scales
of the balance move up and down with the weight of two worlds. The
loneliness, the night, the heavens at night, the forest, the desert
have shown me their true faces. The terribleness that at times proceeds
from them has no equal in any other condition of existence. I understood
for the first time the law that binds families, peoples, states
together. I have repudiated all thought of rebellion, and sworn to
co-operate, to do nothing but co-operate.
"I want to make a confession to you," he continued. "I never had the
faintest conception of the rhythm of life until I went to Africa. I had
known how long it takes to grow a tree; I was familiar with the
metamorphoses through which a plant must pass before it attains to
perfection and becomes what it is; but it had never occurred to me to
apply these laws and facts to our own lives; this had never entered my
mind. I had demanded too much; I had been in too much of a hurry.
Egoistic impatience had placed false weights and measures in my hands.
What I have learned during these seventeen years of trial and hardship
is patience. Everything moves so slowly. Humanity is still a child, and
yet we demand justice of it, expect right and righteous action from it.
Justice? Oh, there is still a long, long road to be travelled before we
reach Justice! The way is as long and arduous as that from the primeval
forest to the cultivated garden. We must exercise patience--for the
benefit of the many generations of men that are to come after us."
Daniel got up and began to walk back and forth. After a silence that was
exceedingly painful to Benda, he said: "Let's go out. Let's go to a
cafe, or take a long walk on the streets, or go wherever you would like
to go. Or if I am a burden to you, I will accompany you for a short
stretch and then remain alone. The point is, I cannot stay here any
longer; I cannot stand it here."
"A burden to me?" replied Benda reproachfully. That was the tone, the
look of years gone by. Daniel felt at once that he was personally under
no obligation to talk. He saw at once that Benda knew a great deal and
suspected the rest. He felt his heart grow lighter.
They went downstairs.
XV
Daniel asked Benda to wait on the stairs, locked the door, and took his
hat from the hook. In the living room there was a great deal of noise
punctuated with laughter. Philippina came out of her room, and snarled:
"The way they're carrying on in there! You'd think they wuz all drunk!"
"What is going on?" asked Daniel timidly, merely to have something to
say.
"They are playing blindfold," replied Philippina contemptuously, "every
one of them is an old bird, and they're playing blindfold!"
There was a sound as if a plate had been broken; a piercing scream
followed, and then silence. But the silence was of momentary duration:
that vulgar, slimy laughter soon broke out again.
Above the din of screaming voices, Daniel heard Dorothea's. He hastened
to the door and opened it.
His enraged eye fell on the table covered with pots, empty cups, and
pastry. The chairs had been pushed to one side; the new gas chandelier
with its five frosted globes was functioning at full force; there were
seven or eight persons grouped around Dorothea, laughing and looking at
something that had fallen on the floor.
Dorothea had pushed the white sash she had been wearing while playing
blindfold back on her forehead. She was the first to see Daniel; she
exclaimed: "There is my husband. Now don't get angry, Daniel; it's
nothing but that idiotic plaster mask."
Councillor Finkeldey, a white-bearded man, nodded at Daniel, or at least
at the spot where he was standing, with marked enthusiasm. It was his
way of paying homage to Dorothea: everything she said he accompanied
with an inspired nod of approval.
Daniel saw that the mask of Zingarella had been broken to pieces.
Without greeting a single person present, without even looking at a
single one of them, he stepped into the circle, knelt down, and tried to
put the broken pieces of the mask together. But there were too many
small shreds. The nose, the chin, parts of the glorious forehead, a
piece with the mouth arched in sorrow, another piece of the cheek--there
were too many; they could not be put together.
He hurled the fragments to one side, and straightened up. "Philippina!
The broom!" His command was given in a loud tone. And when Philippina
came in with the broom, he added: "Sweep the dirt up on a pile, and then
throw it in the garbage can."
Philippina swept up, while Daniel, as silent and unsocial on going as he
had been on coming, left the room.
Frau Feistelmann made an indignant face, Edward Hahn breathed through
his nose, Herr Samuelsky, a fat man with a red beard, made a
contemptuous remark, Dorothea, vexed and annoyed, stood and looked on
while the tears took their unrestrained course.
Benda had been waiting down at the front door. "She has broken my mask,"
said Daniel with a distorted smile, as he came down to his old friend,
"the mask you gave me. You remember! Strange that it should have been
broken to-day of all days, the very day you come to see me after so long
a separation."
"Possibly it can be glued together again," said Benda, trying to console
Daniel.
"I am not in favour of glueing things together," replied Daniel. His
eyes flashed green behind his glasses.
XVI
When the guests left, Philippina came in and cleaned up the room.
Dorothea sat on the sofa. Her hands were lying in her lap; she was
unusually serious.
"Why don't your American ever come to see us?" asked Philippina, without
apparent motive.
Dorothea was terrified. "Lock the door, Philippina," she whispered, "I
have something to tell you."
Philippina locked the door, and went over to the sofa. "The American has
to see me," continued Dorothea, as her eyes roamed about the room in
timid waywardness. "He says he wants to talk to me about something that
will be of very great importance to me the rest of my life. He is living
in a hotel, but I can't go to a hotel. It will not do to have him come
here, nor do I wish to be seen on the street with him. He has suggested
a place where we might meet, but I am afraid: I do not know the people.
Can't you help me out, Philippina? Don't you know some one to whom we
can go and in whose house we can meet?"
Philippina's eyes shone with their veteran glitter. She thought for a
second or two, and then replied: "Oh, yes, I'll tell you what you can
do. Go down to Frau Hadebusch's! She's a good friend of mine, and you
c'n depend on her. It don't make no difference what takes place in her
house; it won't bother even the cat. You know Frau Hadebusch! Of course
you do. What am I talking about! She is a widow, and lives all alone in
a little house. She won't rent; she says she don't want the trouble. You
know she's no young woman any more. She is all alone, mind you. No one
there but her son, and he's cracked. Honest, the boy ain't right."
"Well, you go and talk it over with Frau Hadebusch, Philippina," said
Dorothea timidly.
"Very well, I'll go see her to-morrow morning," replied Philippina,
smiled subserviently, and laid her horny hand on Dorothea's tender
shoulder.
"But listen, Philippina, be very, very careful. Do you hear?" Dorothea's
eyes became big and threatening. "Swear that you will be as silent as
the tombs."
"As true as I'm standing here!" said Philippina. Just then she bent over
to pick up a hair pin from the floor.
The next morning Philippina ran over to Frau Hadebusch's. The whole way
she kept humming to herself; she was happy; she was contented.
THE DEVIL LEAVES THE HOUSE IN FLAMES
I
Despite the rain, Daniel and Benda strolled around the city moat until
midnight.
The very thing that lay heaviest on Daniel's heart, as was obvious from
the expression on his face, he never mentioned. He told of his work, his
travels in connection with the old manuscripts, his position as organist
and in the conservatory, but all in such a general, detached, and
distraught way, so tired and bewildered, that Benda was filled with an
embarrassed anguish that made courteous attention difficult if not