The Goose Man Part 33

Eleanore entered Herr Diruf's private office; her face was pale. He kept on writing for about three minutes before he took any notice of her.

Then his plum-like eyes opened lazily, a rare, voluptuous smile sneaked out from under his moustache like a slothful flash of heat lightning; he said: "The sharper has gone and done it, hasn't he?"

Eleanore never moved.

"Can the embezzled money be returned within twenty-four hours?" asked the pudgy, purple prince of pen-pushers.

"My father will do everything that is humanly possible," replied Eleanore anxiously.

"Be so good as to inform your father that to-morrow morning at twelve o'clock the charge will be preferred and placed in the hands of the police, if the money has not been paid by that time."

Eleanore hastened home. Now her father had to be brought face to face with the realities of the case. He and Gertrude were sitting close to each other in terrible silence. Eleanore revealed the exact state of affairs; she had to.

"My good name!" groaned Jordan.

He had to save himself from disgrace; the twenty-four hours seemed to offer him a sure means of doing this. He had not the remotest doubt but that he could find friends who would come to his aid; for he had something of which he could boast: a blameless past and the reputation of being a reliable citizen.

Thus he thought it over to himself. And as soon as he made up his mind to appeal to the friends of whom he felt he was certain, the most difficult part of his plan seemed to have been completed. The suffering to which he was condemned by his wounded pride and his betrayed, crushed filial affection he had to bear alone. He knew that this was a separate item.

He went out to look up his friends.

VI

The first one he appealed to was the brother-in-law of his sister, First Lieutenant Kupferschmied, retired. His sister had died six months ago, leaving nothing; the lieutenant, however, was a well-to-do man. He had married into the family of a rich merchant. Jordan's relation to him had always been pleasant; indeed the old soldier seemed to be very fond of him. But hardly had Jordan explained his mission when the lieutenant became highly excited. He said he had seen this disaster coming. He remarked that any man who brings up his children in excessive ease must not be surprised if they come to a bad end. He remarked, too, that no power on earth could persuade him to invest one penny in Jordan's case.

Jordan went away speechless.

The second friend he appealed to was his acquaintance of long standing, Judge Rubsam. From him he heard a voluble flow of words dealing with regrets, expressions of disgust, one lament after the other, a jeremiade on hard times, maledictions hurled at dilatory creditors, infinite consolation-and empty advice. He a.s.sured Jordan that yesterday he had almost the requisite sum in cash, and that he might have it again some time next month, but to-day-ah, to-day his taxes were due, and so on, and so on.

Oppressed by the weight of this unexpected humiliation, he went to the third friend, a merchant by the name of Hornbusch, to whom he had once rendered invaluable a.s.sistance. Herr Hornbusch had forgotten all about this, though he had not forgotten that he had vainly sounded in Jordan's ears a warning against the ever-increasing flippancy of young Benno. He told Jordan that he himself was just then in urgent need of money, that he had only last month been obliged to sacrifice a mortgage, and that his wife had p.a.w.ned her diamonds.

Thus it went with the fourth friend, an architect who had told him once that he would sacrifice money and reputation for him if he ever got into trouble. And it was the same story with the fifth and sixth and seventh.

With a heart as heavy as lead, Jordan decided to take the last desperate step: He went to Herr Diruf himself. He asked for a three days'

extension of time. Diruf sat inapproachable at his desk. He was smoking a big thick Havana cigar, his solitaire threw off its blinding fireworks, he smiled a cold, tired smile and shook his head in astonishment.

When Jordan came home that evening he found Daniel and Gertrude in the living room. Gertrude went up to him to support him; then she brought him a gla.s.s of wine as a stimulant: he had not eaten anything since breakfast.

"Where is Eleanore?" he murmured, but seemed to take no interest in the reply to his question. He fell down on a chair, and buried his face in his hands.

Gertrude, who saw his strength leaving him as the light dies out of a slowly melting candle, became dizzy with compa.s.sion. Her last hope was in Eleanore, who had left at five o'clock simply because she found it intolerable to sit around, hour after hour, doing nothing but waiting for the return of her father. At every sound that could be heard in the house, Gertrude p.r.i.c.ked up her ears in eager expectancy.

Daniel stood by the window, and looked out across the deserted square into the dull red glow of the setting sun.

It struck seven, then half past seven, eight, and Eleanore had not returned. Daniel began to pace back and forth through the room; he was nervous. If his foot chanced to strike against a chair, Gertrude shuddered.

Shortly after eight, steps were heard outside. The key rattled in the front gate, the room door opened, and in came Eleanore-and Philippina Schimmelweis.

VII

Everybody looked at Philippina; even Jordan himself honoured her with a faint glance. Daniel and Gertrude were amazed. Daniel did not recognise his cousin; he knew nothing about her; he had seen her but once, and then he was a mere child. He did not know who this repulsive-looking individual was, and demanded that Eleanore give him an explanation. As he did this, he raised his eyebrows.

Eleanore was the only one Philippina looked at in a kindly way; in Philippina's own face there was an expression of curiosity.

Philippina's whole bearing had something of the monstrous about it. Even her dress was picturesque, adventuresome. Her great brown straw hat, with the ribbon sticking straight up in the air, was shoved on to the back of her head so as not to spoil the effect of the fashionable bangs that hung down over her forehead. Her loud, checkered dress was strapped about her waist with a cloth belt so tightly that the contour of her fat body was made to look positively ridiculous: she resembled a gigantic hour gla.s.s. In her rough-cut features there was an element of lurking malevolence.

After a few minutes of painful stillness she walked up to Daniel, and plucked him by the coat-sleeve: "Eh, you don't know who I am?" she asked, and her squinty eyes shone on him with enigmatic savagery: "I am Philippina; you know, Philippina Schimmelweis."

Daniel stepped back from her: "Well, what of it?" he asked, wrinkling his brow.

She followed him, took him by the coat-sleeve again, and led him over into one corner: "Listen, Daniel," she stammered, "my father-he must give you all the money you need. For years ago your father gave him all the money he had, and told him to keep it for you. Do you understand? I happened to hear about it one time when my father was talking about it to my mother. It was a good seven years ago, but I made a note of it. My father spent the money on himself; he thinks he can keep it. Go to him, and tell him what you want; tell him how much you want, and then go help these people here. But you must not give me away; if you do they'll kill me. Do you understand? You won't say a word about it, will you?"

"Is that true?" Daniel managed to say in reply, as a feeling of unspeakable anger struggled with one of indescribable disgust.

"It is true, Daniel, every word of it; 'pon my soul and honour," replied Philippina; "just go, and you'll see that I have told you the truth."

During the conversation of the two, of which she could hardly hear a single syllable, Eleanore never took her eyes off them.

VIII

Since the day Philippina had made her little brother Markus a cripple for life, she had been an outcast in the home of her parents.

To be sure, she had had no great abundance of kindness and cheerfulness before the accident took place. But since that time the barbarous castigation of her father had beclouded and besmirched her very soul.

From her twelfth year on, her mind was ruled exclusively by hate.

Hatred aroused her; it gave birth to thoughts and plans in her; it endowed her with strength of will and audacity; and it matured her before her time.

She hated her father, her mother, her brothers.

She hated the house with all its rooms; she hated the bed in which she slept, the table at which she ate. She hated the people who came to see her parents, the customers who came into the shop, the loafers who gathered about the window, the tall lanky Zwanziger, the books and the magazines.

But the day she overheard her father and mother talking about that money, a second power had joined the ranks of hate in her benighted, abandoned soul. With her brain on fire she stood behind the door, and heard that she was to be married to Daniel. This remark had filled the then thirteen-year-old girl with all the savage instincts of a bound and fettered woman, with all the crabbedness of an unimaginative person of her standing.

In her father's remark she did not see merely a more or less carefully outlined plan; she heard a message from Fate itself; and from that time on she lived with an idea that brought light and purpose into her daily existence.

Shortly after his arrival in Nuremberg, she saw Daniel for the first time as he was standing by a booth in the market place on Schutt Island.

Her father had pointed him out to her. She knew that he wished to become a musician; this made no special impression on her. She knew that he was having a hard time of it; this filled her neither with sympathy nor regret. When she later on saw him in the concert hall, he was already her promised spouse; he belonged to her. To capture him, to get him into her power, it made no difference how, was her unchanging aspiration, in which there was a bizarre mixture of b.e.s.t.i.a.lity and insanity.

The thieving, which she decided upon at once and practised with perfect regularity, netted her in the course of time a handsome sum. She did not become bolder and bolder as she continued her evil practices, but, unlike thieves generally, she grew to be more and more cautious. She acquired in time remarkable skill at showing an outwardly honest face.

Indeed she became such an adept at dissimulation that the suspicion of even Jason Philip, aroused as it had been during the course of a careful investigation, was dispelled by her behaviour.

Her plan was to gain a goodly measure of independence through the money she had stolen. For she always felt convinced that the day would come when her parents would debar her from their home. She was convinced that her father and mother were merely waiting for some plausible excuse to rid themselves of her for good and all.

Moreover, she had two p.r.o.nounced pa.s.sions: one for candy and one for flashy ribbons.

The candy she always bought in the evening. She would slip into the shop of Herr Degen, and, with her greedy eyes opened as wide as possible, buy twenty pfennigs' worth of sweets, at which she would nibble until she went to bed.

The ribbons she sewed together into sashes, which she wore on her hat or around her neck or on her dress. The gaudier the colour the better she liked it. If her mother asked her where she got the ribbons she was forced to lie. Although she had no girl friends, as a matter of fact no friends of any kind, she would say that this or that girl had given them to her. When her wealth became too conspicuous, she would leave the house and not tie her sashes about her until she had reached some unlighted gateway or dark corner.