The Goose Man Part 77

What meaning can be attached to the preliminary questions and answers that invariably accompany such a meeting after such a long separation?

"How are you? How long are you going to stay in town? You still have the same old habits of life? Tell me about yourself." What do such questions mean? They mean virtually nothing. The protagonists thereby simply remove the rubbish from the channels which have been choked up in the course of years, and try to build new bridges carrying them over abysses that must be crossed if the conversation is to be connected and coherent.

Benda had grown somewhat stout. His face was brownish yellow, about the colour of leather. The deep wrinkles around his forehead and mouth told of the hards.h.i.+ps he had gone through. His eye was completely changed: it had the strong, vivacious, and yet quiet appearance of the eye of a hunter or a peasant.

"You may well imagine that I have already told the story of my adventures in Africa a hundred times and in the same way," said Benda.

"It has all been written down, and will shortly appear in book form, where you can read it. It was an unbroken chain of toil and trouble.

Frequently I was as close to death as I am to this wall. I devoured enough quinine to fill a freight car, and yet it was always the same old story, fever to-day, to-morrow, for six months in the year. I have, I fear, ruined my health; I am afraid my old heart will not last much longer. The eternal vigilance I was obliged to exercise, the incessant fight for so simple a thing as a path, or for more urgent things such as food and drink, has told on me. I suffered terribly from the sun; also from the rain. I had very few of the comforts of life; I was often forced to sleep on the ground. And there was no one to talk to, no sense of security."

"And yet," he continued, "I had my reward. When I look back on it all, there is not an hour that I would care to have wiped from my memory. I accomplished a great deal. I made some important discoveries, brought back enough work to keep me busy for years to come, thirty-six boxes of 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, hara.s.sed 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 const.i.tution, 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 gla.s.s 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 const.i.tuted 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 pa.s.s 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 hards.h.i.+p 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 gla.s.ses.

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 h.o.r.n.y 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