The Goose Man Part 42

"But where is help to come from? It is strange; never until this thing happened did I know what holds us two together, you and me. Threads are being spun back and forth between us which no hand may touch without withering, as it is written in the Bible. There is a secret, a sacred secret, and if I offended it I would feel as though I had strangled the unborn child in your womb; and not only the child in your womb, but all the unborn children in my own breast. There is in the life of each man a woman in whom his own mother becomes young again, and to whom he is bound by an unseen, indestructible, umbilical cord. Face to face with this woman, his love, great or small, even his hate, his indifference, becomes a phantom, just as everything that we give out becomes a phantom compared with what is given to us. And there is another woman who is my own creation, the fruit of my dreams; she is my picture; I have created her from my own blood; she lay in me just as the seed lay in the bud.

And she must be mine once she has been unveiled and made known to me, or I will perish of loneliness and maddened longing."

The extravagant man pressed his face to the pillow and groaned: "She must be mine, or I will never get up from this bed. But if my way to her pa.s.ses over you, Gertrude, I would have to cry out with Faust: 'Oh, had I never been born!'"

Gertrude never uttered a sound. Minute after minute pa.s.sed by. Daniel, growing calmer, listened to see if he could not hear some sound in the room. He heard nothing. The silence of his wife began to fill him with anxiety; he rose up in bed. The moon had gone down; it was pitch dark.

He felt around for some matches, and lighted a candle. Holding it in his hand, he bent over Gertrude. She was as pale as death; she was looking at the ceiling with wide-opened eyes.

"Put the candle out, Daniel," she whispered, "I have something to say to you."

He put the candle out, and set it away.

"Give me your hand, Daniel."

He felt for her hand; he took hold of it. It was ice cold; he laid it on his breast.

"May I stay with you, Daniel? Will you tolerate me in your home?"

"Tolerate? Gertrude, tolerate?" he asked, in a lifeless, toneless voice.

"You are my wife, in the presence of G.o.d my wife," he added, in deadened memory of the words of another.

"I will become your mother made young again, as you wish."

"Yes, Gertrude, but how?"

"I will help you, you and Eleanore. The hearts of you two shall not bleed to death because of me. Let me stay; that is all I ask."

"That is more easily said than done, Gertrude." He pressed close up to her, took her in his arms, and sobbed with unexpected violence.

"It is hard; yes, it is hard. But your heart must not be allowed to bleed on my account."

His head lay on her breast; he was seized with convulsions of grief that would not let him go until break of day.

Then all of a sudden the words came like a scream from Gertrude's lips: "I too am a creature."

He embraced her with warmth; and she murmured: "It is hard, Daniel, but be of good cheer, be of good cheer."

XV

Pflaum, the apothecary, had begun to feel cramped in his house near the Church of the Holy Ghost. He had looked at several houses in the last week or two, and had finally decided on the Schimmelweis property, which was now for sale. The apothecary shop was to remain for the time being at its present location, and Jason Philip was likewise to keep his store and his residence. Herr Pflaum, being the landlord, intended to occupy the first and second floors; he had a large family.

One beautiful August afternoon, the two men-the apothecary and the bookseller-left the office of Judge Rubsam, where they had gone to sign the papers transferring the mortgage on the Schimmelweis property. A cloudless sky, already tinted with the blue of the descending sun, shone over the city.

Herr Pflaum looked the picture of happiness: his troubles seemed all to be behind him; he was manifestly facing the future without fear and without care. Jason Philip Schimmelweis, on the contrary, was plainly worried. He looked like a man who was on the down grade. There was a great grease spot on his coat. This spot told the story of domestic troubles; it revealed the fact that Jason Philip had a wife who had been ill in bed for months, and no physician in the city could diagnose her case; none knew what she was suffering from. Jason Philip was angry at his wife, at her illness, at the whole medical profession, and at the growing confusion and disorder in his affairs.

As they crossed aegydius Place he cast a glance of unbounded hatred at the house in which Daniel and Gertrude lived. But he did not say anything; he merely pinched his lips and hung his head. In so doing he noticed the grease spot on his coat, and emitted a vexed growl. "I will go along with you, Herr Apothecary, and get a bottle of benzine," he said, turning to his companion. In his voice there was a noticeable trace of that reluctant and unwilling humility which the poor display in the presence of the rich.

"Good, good," he said, "come right along." He blew the air before him; for he was warm. "Greetings, greetings," he exclaimed, and waved his hand, "what are you doing here?"

It was Herr Carovius to whom he spoke. Herr Carovius was just then standing by the fountain of the Goose Man, rapt in the sort of reflection that was peculiar to him.

"At your service, gentlemen," he said.

"I see there are natives who study our native art," remarked the apothecary with an ironical smile, and stopped. Jason Philip likewise stopped, and looked in a dazed, distraught way at the bronze man with the two geese. Some boys were playing ball close by the fountain. When they saw the three men looking at it, they quit playing, came up, and looked at the fountain and the men and grinned as if there were something new to be seen.

"We have no idea what riches we possess," said Herr Carovius.

"Quite right, quite right," nodded the apothecary.

"I have just been trying to think what meaning this group may have,"

continued Herr Carovius, "there is undeniably a musical motif in it."

"A musical motif?" murmured Jason Philip, to whom the very term music conveyed the idea of something unpleasant.

"Yes, but you have got to understand it," said Herr Carovius rather jauntily. With that he seized the ear of a small boy who had ventured right up to his trousers' legs; the boy screamed.

After casting an angry look at the monument, Jason Philip broke out in sudden and hearty laughter. "Now I understand," he stammered as he coughed, "you are a fox, a sly old dodger."

"What do you mean, gentlemen?" asked the apothecary, who had become somewhat anxious, for he feared that this outburst of hilarity was directed at him.

"Why, don't you see? Don't you understand?" panted Jason Philip with a scarlet red face, "the two geese-? The musical motif and the two geese-? Isn't it clear yet?"

It was clear to Herr Carovius. He stuck the index finger of his right hand in the air, and broke out in a neighing sort of laughter. Then he took the apothecary by the arm, and in the pauses between salvos of laughter he bleated: "Magnificent!-Under each arm a goose!-Priceless!

Say, Herr Schimmelweis, that was good. We will allow you one on that."

The connection was now clear to the apothecary. He slapped himself on his hips and cried: "As sure as there is a devil, that's the best joke I ever heard in my life."

Jason Philip Schimmelweis again got control of himself. He pressed his hands to his stomach and said breathlessly: "Who would have thought that the Goose Man moves about among us in bodily form?"

"Yes, who would have thought it?" said Herr Carovius as if conceding a point. "It is a capital shot, a real discovery. We come to the simple conclusion: Goose Man! And we are capable of drawing a conclusion, for there are three of us. According to an old proverb, _Tres faciunt collegium._"

"And they," stuttered Jason Philip, pointing to the group, as tears of laughter trickled down over his pudgy cheeks, "they are three, too. See, there are three of them!"

"Right," screamed Herr Carovius, "there are three of them, too. It is all clear."

"Have a chew, gentlemen?" said the apothecary, taking his tobacco pouch from his pocket.

"No," replied Jason Philip, "that joke deserves a cigar." The remark was made between gulps of laughter.

"I suggest that we christen the story with a flask of Salvator," said Herr Carovius.

The other two agreed to the proposal. The _collegium_ marched across the square, stopped every now and then, broke out in fits of insuppressible laughter, and then continued on their way to the inn with parched throats.

It may have been only an evening shadow, or it may have been a rare inspiration that created the impression. But the Goose Man, standing there in all his pride behind the iron railing, seemed to follow them with his eyes, in which there were traces of sorrow and astonishment.

The boys playing ball had soon forgotten the delectable episode.