The Goose Man Part 41

Herr Carovius wended his way to this quarter of the city. Because it was only a shadow which he embraced in hours when his inflamed imagination, vitiated by all the poisons of the earth, conjured up a human body, he was angry; now he went there, and bought himself a real human body.

After he had been in a half a dozen of these houses, had been jubilantly greeted, and then thrown out to the accompaniment of bawdy abuse, he at last found what he had been looking for: a creature whose cunning had not entirely been lost, who still had the features of a daughter of man, and whose figure and character still had the power to call up a memory, provided one were firmly decided to see what one wished to see and to forget what one wished to forget.

Her name was Lena, charming reminder of a desired reality! He went with her as she left the circle of her companions, and followed her into the wretched hole between winding stairs and attic rooms. He rattled the coins in his pocket, and gave his orders. The nymph had to put on a street dress, set a modest hat on her head, and draw a veil over her rouged face. Thereupon he went up to her, spoke to her courteously, and kissed her hand. He had never in his life acted in so polite and chivalric a fas.h.i.+on in the presence of a woman.

The prost.i.tute was frightened; she ran away. She had to be given instructions; these were given her by the madame of the house; for Herr Carovius was rattling the coins in his pocket. "You will have to be patient and indulgent; we are not prepared for such refined guests here."

He returned. Lena had been told what to do. She soon fell into her role.

"To be frank," he said to Lena, "I am inexperienced in the arts of love.

I am too proud to kowtow to the berobed and bodiced idol. A woman is a woman, and a man is a man. They delude themselves and each other, or try to, into believing that each woman is a special person, and each man a man to himself. Idiocy!"

The prost.i.tute grinned.

He walked back and forth; the room was just large enough to allow him to take three steps. He recalled the expression on Eleanore's face during the performance of the symphony; his greedy eyes had rested on her all the while. He became enraged: "You don't imagine that progress can be made by such amateurish efforts?" he said with a roar. "It is all hocus-pocus. There is as a matter of fact no such thing as progress in art, any more than there is progress in the course of the stars.

Listen!"

He bellowed forth the first motif from the "Sonata quasi una fantasia"

of Mozart: "Listen to this: Da-dada-da-daddaa! Is it possible to progress beyond that? Don't let them make a fool of you, my angel. Be honest with yourself. He has hypnotised you. He has turned your unsuspecting heart upside down. Look at me! Are you afraid of me? I will do all in my power for you. Give me your hand. Speak to me!"

The prost.i.tute was obliged to stretch out her arms. He sat down beside her with a solemn ceremoniousness. Then he removed the pin from her hat, and laid the hat tenderly to one side. She had to lean her head on his shoulder.

With that he fell into a dreamy meditation.

XIII

Philippina came up to Gertrude in the living room. Daniel was not at home. Philippina was humming the latest street song, the refrain of which ran as follows:

_Drah' di, Madel, drah' di, Morgen kommt der Mahdi._

"There it is," said Philippina, and threw a ball of yarn on the table.

Gertrude had yielded to the girl's importunities, and was addressing her now with the familiar "thou" and allowing Philippina to do the same in speaking to her. "We are after all relatives, you know, Gertrude," said Philippina.

Gertrude was afraid of Philippina; but she had thus far found no means of defending herself against her exaggerated eagerness to help her with the housework. And she felt in Philippina's presence what she felt in the presence of no one else-a sense of shame at her own condition.

Philippina, in fact, saw something indecent in Gertrude's pregnancy; when she talked to her she always held her head up and looked into s.p.a.ce; her action was quite conspicuous.

"Oh, but ain't people impudent," Philippina began, after she had taken a loutish position on a chair. "The clerk over in the store asked me whether there wasn't something up between Daniel and Eleanore. What d'ye think of that? Fresh, yes? You bet I give him all that was coming to him!"

The needle in Gertrude's fingers stopped moving. It was not the first time that Philippina had made such insinuating remarks. To-day she would come up to Gertrude, and whisper to her that Daniel was upstairs with Eleanore; yesterday she had said in a tone of affected sympathy that Eleanore looked so run down. Then she gave a detailed report of what this person and that person had said; then she turned into a champion of good morals and gentle manners, and remarked that you ought not offend people.

Her every third word was "people." She said she knew what a faultless character Eleanore had and how Daniel loved his wife, but people! And after all you couldn't scratch everybody's eyes out who annoyed you with dubious questions; if you did, there would soon be very few eyes left.

Philippina's bangs had acquired an unusual length; they covered her whole forehead down to her eyelashes. The glances she cast at Gertrude had on this account something especially malevolent about them. "She is not so certain of herself and her family after all," thought Philippina, and made a lewd gesture with her legs as she sprawled on the chair.

"You know, I think Daniel ought to be more cautious," she said with her rasping voice. "This being together all alone for hours at a time ain't going to do no good; no good at all, I say. And the two are always running after each other; if it's not her, it's him. If you happen to take 'em by surprise, they jump like criminals. It's been going on this way for six weeks, day after day. Do you think that's right? You don't need to put up with it, Gertrude," she said in conclusion, making a sad attempt to look coquettish. Then she cast her eyes to the floor, and looked as innocent as a child.

Gertrude's heart grew cold. Her confidence in Daniel was unfaltering, but the venomous remarks made to her left her without peace of mind or body; she could not think clearly. The very fact that such things were being said about Daniel and Eleanore, and that words failed her to stop them because from the very beginning she had borne it all with the self-a.s.surance that naturally springs from contempt for gossip, only tended to make her grief all the more bitter.

How hollow any objection on her part would have sounded! How fatuous and ineffective a rebuke from her would have been! Could she muzzle these wicked, slanderous tongues by referring to the peculiarities of Daniel's nature? Could he be expected to go to Philippina and give an account of himself? A contemptuous smile came to her face when she pondered on such possibilities.

And yet, why was she heart-sore? Was it because she was at last beginning to realise that she was unloved?

Involuntarily her eyes fell on the mask; it was still covered with the withered rose twigs. She got up and removed them. Her hand trembled as if she were committing some evil act.

"Go home, Philippina, I don't need you any more," she said.

"Oi, it is late, ain't it? I must be going," cried Philippina. "Don't worry, Gertrude," she said by way of consolation. "And don't complain of me to your husband; he'll git ugly if you do. If you say anything bad about me, there's going to be trouble here, I say. I am a perfect fool; people git out of my way, they do. I've got a wicked mouth, I have; there's no stopping it. Well, good night."

She rubbed her hands down over her skirt, as if she were trying to smooth out the wrinkles; there was an element of comic caution in what she did.

Out on the street she began to hum again:

_Drah' di, Madel, drah' di, Morgen kommt der Mahdi._

XIV

When Daniel came home, it was late; but he sat down by the lamp in his room and began to read Jean Paul's "t.i.tan." In the course of time his thoughts liberated themselves from the book and went their own way. He got up, walked over to the piano, raised the lid, and struck a chord; he listened with closed eyes: it seemed that some one was calling him. It was a sultry night; the stillness was painful.

Again he struck the chord: bells from the lower world. They rang up through the green, grey mists, each distinct and delicate. Each tone sent forth its accompanying group like sparks from a skyrocket. Those related by the ties of harmony joined; those that were alien fell back and down. And up in the distant, inaccessible heights there rang out with deceiving clarity, like the last vision of earthly perfection, the melody of love, the melody of Eleanore.

Yet, some one was calling him; but from where? His wife? The distant, gloomy, waiting one? He closed the piano; the echo of the noise made thereby rebounded from the church wall through his window.

He put out the lamp, went into his bedroom, and undressed by the light of the moon. The border of the curtain was embroidered with heavy Vitruvian scrolls, the shadows of which were reflected on the floor; they made jagged, goalless paths. All these lines consisted after all of only one line.

As he lay in bed his heart began to hammer. Suddenly he knew, without looking, that Gertrude was not asleep; that she was lying there staring at the ceiling just as he was. "Gertrude!" he called.

From the slight rustling of the pillow he concluded that she turned her face to him.

"Don't you hear me?"

"Yes, Daniel."

"You must give me some advice; you must help me: help me and your sister, otherwise I cannot say what may happen."

He stopped and listened, but there was not a stir: the stillness was absolute.

"It is at times possible to remain silent out of consideration for others," he continued, "but if the silence is maintained too long, deception follows, and falsehood does not fail. But of what use is candour if it thrusts a knife into the heart of another merely in order to prepare an unblocked path for him who is candid? What good does it do to confess if the other does not understand? Two are already bleeding to death; shall the third meet with the same fate merely in order to say that the matter was talked over? The truth is, too many words have already been spoken, gruesome, shameless words, at the sound of which the innocent night of the senses vanishes. And must one bleed to death when it becomes clearer and clearer that those are not eternal laws against which war is being waged? How can I, dwarf that I am, attack eternal laws? No, it is the frail, mutable customs of human society-?

Are you listening, Gertrude?"

A "yes" that sounded like a note from a bird on a distant hill greeted his ears: it was the answer to his question.

"I have reached the point where silence is no longer thinkable: there is no going any farther without you. I will neither exaggerate nor have recourse to conventional phrases: I will not speak of pa.s.sion nor say that it could not be helped. It is just barely possible that everything can be helped; that a man could always have done differently if he had begun soon enough. But who can ever tell what the future may bring? And pa.s.sion? There are many varieties of pa.s.sion. It is the term that every swain, washed and unwashed, uses in referring to his l.u.s.ts. I had never felt a pa.s.sion for which a woman was guilty. But now one has seized me with hide and hair. I had imagined that I could get out of it and not bring you into it; impossible! I am burning up with this pa.s.sion, Gertrude, my whole being has been changed by it; and if help is not given me, I will be ruined."

For a time there was a death-like stillness in the room; then he continued.