The Goose Man Part 26

Jordan took a seat, and buried his face in his hands. In course of time he looked up, and said that three years ago he had only eight thousand marks in the bank; that hard times had forced him to draw on this sum to keep the house going; and that to-day there was hardly a third of it left. Two thousand marks was all he could give Gertrude as a dowry; with that they would have to be satisfied, and get along as well as they could.

"We don't need any more," said Daniel; "as a matter of fact I did not expect that much. Now I haven't a care in the world; I am ready for anything."

A bat flew in at the open window, and then quietly flew out again. It had stopped raining. You could still hear the water trickling and splashing down the leaders and in the pipes. There was something heavy, portentous, in the air of this June evening.

XIV

At first Daniel had received small bits of news from England about Benda, but for a year and a half he had not heard a word. When Eleanore returned from Pommersfelden in July, she told him that she had received a letter from Benda in April, and that she had sent him this letter when he was at Naumburg. Daniel, however, had never received it, and the investigations which he made proved fruitless.

Benda's mother was not in the city; she was living with relatives in Worms, but had kept her apartment at Herr Carovius's.

Frau von Auffenberg was at Bad Ems, and did not plan to return until September. Daniel looked up old friends, and rebound the ties of former days. He also succeeded in getting a number of students to tutor, an occupation that netted him a little spending money.

He had to attend to a great deal of business for which he was quite unfit. He had imagined that he could get married just as he might go to a shop and buy something: he would not make any noise, nor would it take much time. He had a hundred moods, a hundred objections, a hundred grimaces. The apartment on aegydius Place was already rented. It embittered him to think that in order to live with a person you loved, you had to have tables, beds, chairs, cupboards, lamps, gla.s.ses, plates, garbage cans, water pails, window cushions, and a thousand and one other foolish objects.

There was a great deal of talk in the city about the marriage. The people said they did not know what Jordan could be thinking of. They were convinced that he was in desperate financial straits if he would marry his daughter to an impecunious musician.

Daniel found everything hard: every day was his Day of Judgment. A melody was gnawing at his heart, trying to take on a pure and finished form. Freedom sounded in his ears with voices from above; his quiet fiancee begged for comradeship. The task to which he had dedicated himself demanded loneliness; then his blood carried him along and away, and he became like wax, but wild.

He would rush to Jordan's house, enter the living room, his hair all dishevelled, sit down where the two sisters were working on Gertrude's trousseau, and never utter a syllable until Gertrude would come up to him and lay her hand on his forehead. He thrust her back, but she smiled gently. At times, though none too frequently, he would take her by the arms and pull her down to him. When he did this, Eleanore would smile with marked demureness, as if it were not right for her to see two people in love.

There was a second-hand baby grand piano in Jordan's living room. Daniel played on it in the evening, and the sisters listened. Gertrude was like a woman wrapt in peaceful slumber, her every wish having been fulfilled, with kindly spirits watching over her. Eleanore, however, was wide awake; she was awake and meditating.

XV

The day of the wedding arrived. At half past nine in the morning, Daniel appeared in Jordan's house. He wore an afternoon suit and a high hat!

He was vexed, and villanous to behold, a picture of misery.

Benno, the man of the world, was forced to leave the room. No sooner was he outside than he laughed so heartily that he fell into a clothes basket. He did not approve of this marriage; he was ashamed to tell his friends about it.

Gertrude wore a plain street dress and a little virgin bonnet, then prescribed by fashion. She sat by the table, and gazed into s.p.a.ce with wide-opened eyes.

Eleanore came into the room with a wreath of myrtle. "You must put this on, Gertrude," she said, "just to please us; just to make us feel that you are a real bride. Otherwise you look too sober, too much as though you two were going to the recorder's office on profane business."

"Where did you get that wreath?" asked Jordan.

"I found it in an old chest; it is mother's bridal wreath."

"Really? Mother's bridal wreath?" murmured Jordan, as he looked at the faded myrtle.

"Put it on, Gertrude," Eleanore again requested, but Gertrude looked first at Daniel, and then laid it to one side.

Eleanore went up to the mirror, and put it on her own head.

"Don't do that, child," said Jordan with a melancholy smile.

"Superst.i.tious people say that you will remain an old maid forever, if you wear the wreath of another."

"Then I will remain an old maid, and gladly so," said Eleanore.

She turned away from the mirror, and looked at Daniel half unconscious of what she was doing. The blond of her eyelashes had turned almost grey, the red of her lips had been dotted with little spots from her smiling, and her neck was like something liquid and disembodied.

Daniel saw all this. He looked at the Undine-like figure of the girl. It seemed to him that he had not seen her since the day of his return, that he had not noticed that she had become more mature, more beautiful, and more lovely. All of a sudden he felt as if he were going to swoon. It went through him like a flash: Here, here was what he had forgotten; here was the countenance, the eye, the figure, the movement that had stood before him, and he, fool, unspeakable fool, had been struck by blindness.

Gertrude had a fearful suspicion of the experience he was going through.

She arose, and looked at Daniel in horror. He hastened up to her as if he were fleeing, and seized her hands. Eleanore, believing she had aroused Daniel's displeasure by some word or gesture, s.n.a.t.c.hed the myrtle wreath from her hair.

Jordan had paid no attention to these incidents. Bringing at last his restless pacing back and forth to an end, he took out his watch, looked at it, and said it was time they were going. Eleanore, who had displayed a most curious disposition the whole morning, asked them to wait a minute. Before they could find out why she wished them to wait, the door bell rang, and she ran out.

She returned with a radiant expression on her face; Marian Nothafft followed her. Marian composed herself only with extreme difficulty. Her eyes roamed about over the circle of people before her, partly as if she were frightened, partly as if she were looking for some one.

Mother and son stood face to face in absolute silence. That was the work of Eleanore.

Marian said she was living with her sister Theresa; that she had arrived the day before; and that she wished to return this evening.

"I am glad, Mother, that you could come," said Daniel with a stifled voice.

Marian laid her hand on his head; she then went up to Gertrude, and did the same.

After the wedding, Jordan gave a luncheon for his children. In the afternoon they all started off in two hired coaches. Daniel had never seen his mother so cheerful; but it was useless to ask her to prolong her visit. While this was being discussed, she and Eleanore exchanged knowing glances.

As evening drew on, Daniel and Gertrude betook themselves to their home.

XVI

It is night. The antiquated old square is deserted. The bell in the church tower has struck eleven; the lights in the windows die out, slowly, one by one.

The figure of a woman is seen coming up the alley. She is spying anxiously about, before her and behind her. Finally she stops before the little house in which Daniel and Gertrude live. Is it a living creature?

Is it not rather an uncanny gnome? The garments hang loose about the unshapely body; a crumpled straw hat covers the mad-looking face; the shoulders are raised; the fists are clenched; the eyes are gla.s.sy.

Suddenly there is a scream. The woman hastens over toward the church, falls on her knees, and sinks her teeth with frenzied madness into the wooden pickets of the fence. After some time she rises, stares up once more at the windows with distorted lips, and then moves away with slow, dragging steps.

It was Philippina Schimmelweis. She kept going about the streets in this fashion until break of day.

DANIEL AND GERTRUDE

I

The Reichstag had voted to extend the period during which the Socialist law would be in effect; the pa.s.sing of a new army bill was also to be expected. These two measures had provoked tumultuous discord in many parts of the country.

The Social Democrats were planning a parade through the main streets of the city in October, but the police had already forbidden their demonstration. The evening the edict was issued the regiments stood at alert in the barracks; feeling ran high throughout the entire city. In Wohrd and Plobenhof there had been a number of riots; in the narrow streets of the central zone thousands of workmen had stormed the Rathaus.

Every now and then there would come a long, shrill whistle from the silent ma.s.s, followed at once by the heavy rolling of drums at the guard house.