The Goose Man
The old man had to sign a receipt in acknowledgment of a solemnly sealed
money order.
In the letter the postman gave him were two hundred dollars in bills and
a note from Benno. The letter had been mailed in Galveston. Benno wrote
that he had made inquiries and found that his father was still living.
He said he had been quite successful in the New World, and as a proof of
his prosperity he was sending him the enclosed sum, with the best of
greetings, in payment for the trouble he had cost his father.
It was a cold epistle. But the old man was beside himself with joy. He
ran to Daniel and then to Philippina, held the crisp notes in the air,
and stammered: "Look, people! He is rich. He has sent me two hundred
dollars! He has become an honest man, he has. He remembers his old
father, he does! Really this is a great day! A great day, Daniel,
because of something else that has just been finished." He added with a
mysterious smile: "A blessed day in the history of a great cause!"
He dressed and went down town; he wanted to tell his friends the news.
Daniel called down to know if his breakfast was ready; nobody answered.
Thereupon he went to the kitchen, and got himself a bottle of milk and
a loaf of bread. Philippina came in a little later. Her hair looked as
though a hurricane had struck it; she was in her worst humour. She
snarled at Daniel, asking him why in the name of God he couldn't wait
till the coffee had been boiled.
"Leave me in peace, Philippina," he said, "I need peace."
"Peace!" she roared, "peace, the same old story: you want peace!" She
threw a wild, contemptuous glance at the open chest containing Daniel's
scores, leaned against the table, put the tips of her dirty fingers on
the score he was then studying, and shrieked: "There is the cause of the
whole _malheur_! The whole _malheur_, I say, comes from this damned
note-smearing of yours! The idea of a man settin' down and dabbing them
pot-hooks on good white paper, day after day, year in and year out! What
does it all mean? Tell me! While you're doin' it, everything else is
moving--like a crab, backwards. Jesus, you're a man, and yet you spend
your time at that kind of stuff! I'd be ashamed to admit it."
Not prepared for this enigmatic outburst of anger and hate, Daniel
looked at Philippina utterly dazed. "Get out of here," he cried
indignantly. "Get out of here, I say," and pointed to the door.
She got out. "The damned dabbery!" she bellowed with reinforced
maliciousness.
From ten to twelve, Daniel had to lecture at the conservatory. His heart
beat violently, though he was unable to explain his excitement. It was
more than a foreboding: he felt as if he had heard a piece of terribly
bad news and the real nature of it had slipped his memory.
He did not go home for luncheon; he ate in the cafe at the Carthusian
Gate. Then he took a long walk out over the fields and meadows. It had
stopped raining, and the brisk wind refreshed him. He stood for a long
while on the banks of the canal, and watched some men piling bricks at a
brick-kiln. From time to time he took a piece of paper from his pocket,
and wrote something on it with his pencil: it was notes.
Once he wrote alongside of a motif: "Farewell, my music!" His eyes were
filled with dreadful tears.
He returned to the city just as the sun was setting; it looked like a
huge ball of fire in the west. The sky shone out between two great black
clouds like the forge of a smithy. He could not help but think of
Eleanore.
He entered his living room, and paced back and forth. Philippina came
in, and asked him whether she should warm up his soup for him. Her
unnatural, singing tone attracted his attention; he looked at her very
closely.
"Where is my wife?" he asked.
Philippina's face betrayed an abysmally mean smile, but she never said a
word.
"Where is my wife?" he asked a second time, after a pause.
Philippina's smile became brighter. "Is it cold out?" she asked, and in
a moment she had left the room. Daniel stared at her as if he feared she
had lost her mind. In a few minutes she came back. In the meantime she
had put on a cloak that was much too short for her, and beneath which
the loud, freakish skirt of her checkered dress could be seen.
"Daniel, come along with me," she said in an anxious voice. To Daniel
her voice sounded mysterious and fearful. "Come along with me, Daniel! I
want to show you something."
He turned pale, put on his hat, and followed her. They crossed the
square in silence, went through Binder Street, Town Hall Street, and
across the Market. Daniel stopped. "What are you up to?" he asked with a
hoarse voice.
"Come along! You'll see," whispered Philippina.
They walked on, crossed the Meat Bridge, went through Kaiser Street and
the White Tower to St. James's Place. Some people looked at the odd
couple in amazement. When they reached Frau Hadebusch's little house, it
was dark. "Listen, Philippina, are you ever going to talk?" said Daniel,
gritting his teeth.
"Psh!" Philippina knew what she was doing. She put her mouth to Daniel's
ear, and whispered: "Go up two flights, quick, you know the house, bang
on the door, and if it's locked, bust it in. In the meantime I'll go to
Frau Hadebusch so that she can't interfere."
Then Daniel understood.
VII
Everything became blood-red before his eyes; he was seized with a
feverish chill.
He had followed Philippina with a dejected, limp feeling of disgust,
fear and coercion. Now he knew what it was all about. At the very
beginning of the events he saw the middle and the end. He saw before the
bolted door what was going on behind it. His soul was seized with
horror, rage, woe, contempt, and terror. He felt dizzy; he feared lie
might lose consciousness.
He sprang up the creaking stairs by leaps and bounds. He stood before
the door behind which he had gone hungry, been cold, and glowed with
enthusiasm as a young man. Silence should have reigned there now, so
that the devotion of retrospective spirits might not be molested on the
grave of so many, many hopes.
He jerked at the latch; a scream was heard from within. The door was
bolted. He pressed his body against the fragile wood so violently that
both hinges, and the latch, gave way, and the door fell on to the middle
of the floor with a mighty crash.
The scream was repeated, this time in a more piercing tone. Dorothea was
lying on a big bed with nothing on but a flimsy chemise. Frau Hadebusch,
pimp always, had rented the bed from a second-hand dealer; it covered a
half of the room. Before Dorothea was a plate of cherries; she had been
amusing herself by shooting the pits at her lover. He likewise was
lacking nearly all the garments ordinarily worn by men when in the
presence of women. He was sitting astride on a chair, smoking a
short-stemmed pipe.
When Daniel, with bloody hands--he had scratched himself while breaking
in the door--with his hair flying wild about his face, panting, and pale
as death, stepped over the door, Dorothea again began to scream; she
screamed seven or eight times. She was filled with despair and terrible
anxiety.
Daniel rushed at the young man, and seized him by the throat. While he
held the American in a death-like grip, while he saw Dorothea, as if in
a roseate haze, with uplifted arms, leave the bed screaming at the top
of her voice, while an extraordinary power of observation, despite his
insane rage, came over him, while he watched the cherries as they rolled
across the bed and saw the green stems, some of which were withered,
showing that the cherries were half rotten, while he felt a taste on his
tongue as if he too had eaten cherries--while he saw all these things
and had this sensation, he thought to himself without either doubt or
relief: "This is the downfall; this is chaos."
The American--it later became known that he was a wandering artist who
had, with an equal amount of nerve and adroitness, worked his way into
the private social life of the city--thrust his antagonist back with all
his might, and struck up the position of a professional boxer. Daniel,
however, gave him no time to strike; he fell on him, wrapped his arms
tight about him, threw him to the floor, and was trying to choke him. He
groaned, struggled, got his fist loose, struck Daniel in the face, and
cried, "You damned fool!" But it was the cry of a whipped man.
Loud noise broke out downstairs. A crowd of people collected on the
sidewalk. "Police, police!" shrieked the shrill voice of a woman. The
people began to make their way up the stairs.
"Oh, oh, oh!" moaned Dorothea. In half a minute she had her dress on.
"Out of this place and away," she said, as she looked for her gloves and
umbrella.
Frau Hadebusch appeared in the hall, wringing her hands. Behind her
stood Philippina. Two men forced their way in, ran up to Daniel and the
American, and tried to separate them. But they had bitten into each
other like two mad dogs; and it was necessary to call for help. A
soldier and the milkman gave a hand; and finally two policemen appeared
on the scene.
"I must go home," cried Dorothea, while the other women shrieked and
carried on. "I must go home, and get my things and leave."
With the face of one possessed and at the same time dumb, Philippina
stole out from among the excited crowd and followed Dorothea. She did
not feel that she was walking; she could not feel the pavement under her
feet; she was unconscious of the air. That wild inspiration returned to
her which she had experienced once before in her life--the time she went
up in the attic and saw Gertrude's lifeless body hanging from a rafter.
Her veins pulsed with a hot lust for destruction. "Swing the torch!"
That was the cry she heard running through her brain. "Swing the torch!"
But she wanted to do something much more pretentious this time than
merely start a fire in some rubbish. The farther she went the more
rapidly she walked. Finally she began to run and sing with a loud,
coarse voice. Her cloak was not buttoned; it flew in the air. The people
who saw her stopped and looked at her, amazed.
VIII
Herr Carovius and Jordan were sitting in the Paradise Cafe.
"How things change, and how everything clears up and straightens out!"
remarked Jordan.
"Yes, the open graves are gaping again," said Herr Carovius cynically.
"So far as I am concerned," continued Jordan, without noticing the
aversion his affability had aroused in Herr Carovius, "I can now face
death with perfect peace of mind. My mission is ended; my work is done."
"That sounds as if you had discovered the philosopher's stone," remarked
Herr Carovius sarcastically.
"Perhaps," replied Jordan gently and bent over the table. "You are after
all not entirely wrong, my honoured friend. Do you wish to be convinced?
Will you honour me with a visit?"
Herr Carovius had become curious. They paid their bills and left for
AEgydius Place.
Having entered Jordan's room, the old man lighted a lamp and bolted the
door. He then opened the door of the great cabinet by the wall, and took
out a big doll. It was dressed like a Swiss maid, had on a flowered
skirt, a linen waist, and a little pink apron. Its yellow hair was done
up in braids, and on its head was a little felt hat.
"All that is my handiwork," said Jordan, with much show of pride. "I
myself took all the measurements and made the clothes, including even
the shoes. And now watch, my dear friend."
He placed the doll in the middle of the room. "She will speak," he
continued, his face radiant with joy, "she will sing. She will sing a
song native to her beloved Tyrol. Will you be so good as to take this
chair? I would rather not have you so close to it, if I may, for there