The Goose Man
short distance before him he saw a man and a woman. He recognized
Dorothea.
They were speaking very rapidly and in subdued tones. Daniel followed
them; and when they reached the door of his house and turned to go in,
he stopped in the shadow of the church.
The man seemed to be angry and excited: Dorothea was trying to quiet
him. She was standing close by him; she held his hand in hers until she
unlocked the door. First she whispered, looked up at the house
anxiously, and then said out loud: "Good night, Edmund. Sweet dreams!"
The man went on his way without lifting his hat. Dorothea hastened in.
Daniel was trembling in his whole body. There was something in his eyes
that seemed to be beseeching; and there was something mystic about them.
He watched until the light had been lighted upstairs and the window
shade drawn. He was tortured by the stillness of the Square; when the
clock in the tower struck eleven he thought he could hear the blood
roaring in his ears.
It was only with difficulty that he dragged himself into the house.
Dorothea, already in her night-gown, was sitting at the table in the
living room, sewing a ribbon on the dress she had just been wearing: it
had somehow got loose.
They spoke to each other. Daniel stood behind her, near the stove, and
looked over at the back of her bared neck as if held by a spell. One
cold shiver after another was running through his body.
"Who gave you those ostrich feathers?" he asked, suddenly and rather
brusquely. The question slipped from his lips before he himself was
aware of it. He would have liked to say something else.
Dorothea raised her head with a jerk. "I thought I told you," she
replied, and he noticed that she coloured up.
"I cannot believe that a perfect stranger, and a woman at that, is
making you such costly presents," said Daniel slowly.
Dorothea got up, and looked at him rather undecidedly. "Very well, if
you simply must know, I bought them myself," she said with unusual
defiance. "But you don't need to try to browbeat me like that; I'll get
the money that I paid for them. And you needn't think for a minute that
I am going to let you draw up a family budget, and expect to make me
live by it."
"You didn't buy those feathers," said Daniel, cutting her off in the
middle of her harangue.
"I didn't buy them, and they were not given to me! How did I get them
then? Stole them perhaps?" Dorothea was scornful; but cowardice made it
impossible for her to look Daniel in the face.
"I have never in my life talked to any one in this way, nor has any one
ever spoken to me like that," thought Daniel to himself. He turned
deathly pale, went up to her, and placed his hand like an iron vise
about her arm. "I shall permit you to waste my money; I shall not object
if you fritter your time away in the company of good-for-nothing people;
if you regard my health and peace of mind as of no consequence whatever,
I shall say nothing; if you let your poor little child suffer and pine
away, I shall keep quiet. I shall submit to all of this. And why
shouldn't I? Why should I want to have my meals served at regular hours?
Why should I insist that my morning coffee be warm and my rolls fresh
from the baker? Why should I be so exacting as to ask that my clothes be
mended, my windows washed, my room swept, and my table in order? I was
not born with a silver spoon in my mouth; I have never known what it was
to be comfortable."
"Oh, listen, Daniel, it's too bad about you," said Dorothea in an
anxious tone, "but let go of my arm."
He loosened his grip on her arm, but did not let it go. "You may
associate with whomsoever you please. Let those people treasure you to
whom you are a treasure. So far as money is concerned, you can have all
that I have. Here it is, take it." He drew from his pocket an
embroidered purse filled with coins, and hurled them on the table. "So
that you can wear fine dresses, I will play the organ on Sundays. So
that you can go to masquerade balls and parties of all kinds, I will try
to beat a little music into some twenty-odd unmusical idiots. I will do
more than that: I will promise never to bother myself about your
behaviour: I will never ask you where you have been or where you are
going. But listen, Dorothea," he said, as his face flushed with anger
and anxiety, his voice rising as if by unconscious pressure, "don't you
ever dare dishonour my name! It is the only thing I have. I owe humanity
an irreparable debt for it. It invests me not simply with what is known
as civic honour, it gives me also the honour I feel and enjoy when I
stand in the presence of what I have created. Lie, and you besmirch my
name! Lie, and you sully and debase it! I am probably not as much afraid
as you think I am of being regarded as a cuckold, though I admit that
the thought of it makes my blood boil. But I want to say to you here and
now, that when I think of you in the arms of another man I feel within
me a deep desire, a real lust for murder. But you would throw me into
the last pit of hell and damnation, if you were to repay the truths I
have told you and given you with lies, lies, lies. You must not, you
dare not, imagine for a minute that I am so selfish and vulgar as not to
be able to understand that a change might come over your heart. But that
is one thing; telling a lie and living a lie is quite another. It is
impossible for me to live side by side with another human being except
in absolute truth. A lie, the lie, crushes what there is in me of the
divine. A lie to me is carrion and corruption. Tell me, then, whether
you have been and are true to me! Don't be afraid, Dorothea, and don't
be ashamed. Everything may be right yet and work out as it should. But
tell me: Have you been deceiving me?"
"I--deceiving you?" breathed Dorothea, and looked into his face as if
hypnotised, never so much as moving an eyelash. "What do you mean?
Deceiving you? Do you really think that I would be capable of such
baseness?"
"You have no lover? No other man has touched you since you have been my
wife?"
"A lover? Some other man has touched me?" she repeated with that same
hypnotic look. In her child-like face there was the glow of
unadulterated honour and undiluted innocence.
"You have been having no secret _rendezvous_, you have not been
receiving treacherous letters, nor writing them, you have promised no
man anything, not even in jest?"
"Ah, well now, Daniel, listen! In jest. That's another matter. Who
knows? You know me, and you know how one talks and laughs."
"And you assure me that all this mysterious abuse that is being
whispered into my ears and to which your conduct has given a certain
amount of plausibility is nothing in the world but wickedness on the
part of people who know us, nothing but calumny?"
"Yes, Daniel: it is merely wickedness, meanness, and calumny."
"You are willing that God above should never grant you another minute of
peace, if you have been lying to me? Do you wish that, Dorothea?"
Dorothea balked; she blinked a little. Then she said quite softly:
"Those are terrible words, Daniel. But if you insist upon it, I am
willing to abide by the curse you have made a possibility."
Daniel breathed a breath of relief. He felt that a mighty load had been
taken from his heart. And in grateful emotion he went up to his wife,
and pressed her to his bosom.
But at the same time he was repelled by something. He felt that the
creature he was pressing to his heart was without rhythm, or vibration,
or law, or order. He began again to be gnawed at by torture, this time
of a new species and coming from another direction.
As he opened the door to the hall, he heard a rustle; and he saw a dark
figure hastening over to the room that opened on the court.
V
Left alone, Dorothea stared for a while into space, as motionless as a
statue. Then she took her violin and bow from the case--she had bought a
new bow to take the place of the one that had been broken--and began to
play: a cadence, a trill, a waltz. Her face took on a hardened, resolute
expression.
She soon let the instrument fall from her hands, and began to think. She
laid the violin to one side, took off her slippers, sneaked out of the
room in her stocking feet and across the hall, and listened at the door
to Philippina's room. She opened it cautiously and heard a sound snoring
from Philippina's bed, which stood next to the door.
The lamp had almost burned down; it gave so little light that the bed
clothes could hardly be seen.
She stole up to Philippina's couch of repose, step by step, without
making the slightest noise, bent down, stretched out her arm, groped
around over the body of the inexplicable creature who was sleeping
there, and was on the point of raising the covers and reaching for
Philippina's breast. Philippina ceased snoring, woke up as if she had
been struck in the face by the rays of a magic lantern, opened her eyes,
and looked at Dorothea with a speechless threat. Not a muscle of her
face moved.
Dorothea collected her thoughts instantly. With the expression on her
face of one who has just succeeded in carrying out some good joke, she
threw her whole body on Philippina and pressed her face to her cheek,
nauseated though she was by the stench of her breath and the bed
clothes.
"Listen, Philippina, the American wants to give you something," she
whispered.
"Jesus, you're punching my belly in," replied Philippina, and gasped for
breath. When Dorothea had straightened up, she said: "Well, has he
already given you something? That's the main thing."
"He gave me the feathers. Isn't that something?" replied Dorothea, "and
he is going to give me a set of rubies."
"I wish you already had 'em. It seems to me that your American don't
exactly hail from Givetown. I've been told that he ain't so damn rich
after all. When are you goin' to meet him again, your lover?"
"To-morrow evening, between six and seven. Oh, I am so glad, so glad,
Philippina. He is so young."
"Yes, young! That's a lot, ain't it?" murmured Philippina
contemptuously.
"He has such a pretty mole on his neck, way down on his neck, down
there," she said, pointing to the same spot on Philippina's neck. "Right
there! Does it tickle you? Does it make you feel good?"
"Don't laugh so loud, you'll waken little Gottfried," said Philippina in
a testy, morose tone. "And get out of here! I'm sleepy."
"Good-night, then, you pesky old dormouse," said Dorothea, in seemingly
good-natured banter, and left the room.
Hardly had she closed the door behind her when Philippina sprang like an
enraged demon from her bed, clenched her fist, and hissed: "Damned
thief and whore! She wanted to rob me, that's what she did, the dirty
wench! You wait! Your days in this place are numbered. Somebody's going
to squeal, believe me, and when they do, they'll get you right."
She drew her red petticoat over her legs, tied it tightly, and went to
the door to lock it. The lock had been out of order for some time; she
could not budge it. She carried a chair over to the door, placed it
directly underneath the lock, folded her arms, sat down on it, and
remained sitting there for an hour or so blinking her evil eyes.
When no longer able to keep from going to sleep, she got up, placed the
folding table against the door, and got back into bed, murmuring
imprecations such as were second nature to her.
VI
The following day began with a heavy rain storm. Daniel had had a
restless night; he went to his work quite early. But his head was so
heavy that he had to stop every now and then, and rest it on his hand.
There was no blood, no swing to his ideas.
Toward eight o'clock the postman came, and asked for Inspector Jordan.