The Goose Man Part 75

For a long while the two men would go there, sit down at their chosen tables, and study each other at a distance. Finally the day came when they sat down together; then it became a custom for them to take their places at the same table, one back in the corner by the stove, where a quiet comradeship developed between them. It was rare that their conversation went beyond external plat.i.tudes.

Herr Carovius acted as though he were merely enduring old Jordan. But he never really became absorbed in his newspaper until the old man had come and sat down at the table with him, greeting him with marked respect as he did so. Jordan, however, did not conceal his delight when, on entering the cafe and casting his eyes around the room, they at last fell on Herr Carovius. While he sipped his coffee, he never took them off the wicked face of his _vis-a-vis_.

X

Philippina became Dorothea's confidential friend.

At first it was nothing more than Dorothea's desire to gossip that drew her to Philippina. Later she fell into the habit of telling her everything she knew. She felt no need of keeping any secret from Philippina, the inexplicable. The calm attentiveness with which Philippina listened to her flattered her, and left her without a vestige of suspicion. She felt that Philippina was too stupid and uncultivated to view her activities in perspective or pa.s.s judgment on them.

She liked to conjure up seductive pictures before the old maid's imagination; for she loved to hear Philippina abuse the male of the species. If some bold plan were maturing in her mind, she would tell Philippina about it just as if it had already been executed. In this way she tested the possibility of really carrying out her designs, and procured for herself a foretaste of what was to follow.

It was chiefly Philippina's utter ugliness that made her trust her. Such a homely creature was in her eyes not a woman, hardly a human being of either s.e.x; and with her she felt she could talk just as much as she pleased, and say anything that came into her head. And since Philippina never spoke of Daniel in any but a derogatory and spiteful tone, Dorothea felt perfectly safe on that ground.

She would come into the kitchen, and sit down on a bench and talk: about a silk dress she had seen for sale; about the fine compliments Court Councillor Finkeldey had paid her; about the love affairs of these and the divorce proceedings of those; about Frau Feistelmann's pearls, remarking that she would give ten years of her life if she also had such pearls. In fact, the word she used most frequently was "also." She trembled and shook from head to foot with desires and wishes, low-minded unrest and l.u.s.ts that flourish in the dark.

Often she would tell stories of her life in Munich. She told how she once spent a night with an artist in his studio, just for fun; and how on another occasion she had gone with an officer to the barracks at night simply on a wager. She told of all the fine-looking men who ran after her, and how she dropped them whenever she felt like it. She said she would let them kiss her sometimes, but that was all; or she would walk arm in arm with them through the forest, but that was all. She commented on the fact that in Munich you had to keep an eye out for the police and observe their hours, otherwise there might be trouble. For example, a swarthy Italian kept following her once-he was a regular Conte-and she couldn't make the man go on about his business, and you know he rushed into her room and held a revolver before her face, and she screamed, of course she did, until the whole house was awake, and there was an awful excitement.

When Daniel endeavoured to put a stop to her wastefulness, she went to Philippina and complained. Philippina encouraged her. "Don't you let him get away with anything," said she, "let him feel that a woman with your beauty didn't have to marry a skinflint."

When she began to go with Edmund Hahn, she told Philippina all about it.

"You ought to see him, Philippina," she whispered in a mysterious way.

"He is a regular Don Juan; he can turn the head of any woman." She said he had been madly in love with her for two years, and now he was going to gamble for her; but in a very aristocratic and exclusive club, to which none but the nicest people belonged. "If I win, Philippina, I am going to make you a lovely present," she said.

From then on her conversation became rather tangled and incoherent. She was out a great deal, and when she returned she was always in a rather uncertain condition. She had Philippina put up her hair, and every word she spoke during the operation was a lie. One time she confessed that she had not been in the theatre, as Daniel had supposed, but at the house of a certain Frau Baumler, a good friend of Edmund Hahn. They had been gambling: she had won sixty marks. She looked at the door as if in fear, took out her purse, and showed Philippina three gold pieces.

Philippina had to swear that she would not give Dorothea away. A few days later Dorothea got into another party and got out of it successfully, and Philippina had to renew her oath. The old maid could take an oath with an ease and glibness such as she might have displayed in saying good morning. In the bottom of her heart she never failed to grant herself absolution for the perjury she was committing. For the time being she wished to collect, take notes, follow the game wherever it went. Moreover, it tickled and satisfied her senses to think about relations and situations which she knew full well she could never herself experience.

Dorothea became more and more ensnared. Her eyes looked like will-o'-the-wisps, her laugh was jerky and convulsive. She never had time, either for her husband or her child. She would receive letters occasionally that she would read with greedy haste and then tear into shreds. Philippina came into her room once quite suddenly; Dorothea, terrified, hid a photograph she had been holding in her hand. When Philippina became indignant at the secrecy of her action, she said with an air of inoffensive superiority: "You would not understand it, Philippina. That is something I cannot discuss with any one."

But Philippina's vexation worried her: she showed her the photograph.

It was the picture of a young man with a cold, crusty face. Dorothea said it was an American whom she had met at Frau Baumler's. He was said to be very rich and alone.

Every evening Philippina wanted to know something about the American.

"Tell me about the American," she would say.

One evening, quite late, Dorothea came into Philippina's room with nothing on but her night-gown. Agnes and little Gottfried were asleep.

"The American has a box at the theatre to-morrow evening. If you call for me you can see him," she whispered.

"I am bursting with curiosity," replied Philippina.

For a while Dorothea sat in perfect silence, and then exclaimed: "If I only had money, Philippin', if I only had money!"

"I thought the American had piles of it," replied Philippina.

"Of course he has money, lots of it," said Dorothea, and her eyes flashed, "but-"

"But? What do you mean?"

"Do you think men do things without being compensated?"

"Oh, that's it," said Philippina reflectively, "that's it." She crouched on a ha.s.sock at Dorothea's feet. "How pretty you are, how sweet," she said in her ba.s.s voice: "G.o.d, what pretty little feet you have! And what smooth white skin! Marble's got nothing on you." And with the carnal concupiscence of a faun in woman's form she took Dorothea's leg in her hand and stroked the skin as far as the knee.

Dorothea shuddered. As she looked down at the cowering Philippina, she noticed that there was a b.u.t.ton missing on her blouse. Through the opening, just between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, she saw something brown. "What is that on your body there?" asked Dorothea.

Philippina blushed. "Nothing for you," she replied in a rough tone, and held her hand over the opening in her blouse.

"Tell me, Philippina, tell me," begged Dorothea, who could not stand the thought of any one keeping a secret from her: "Possibly it is your dowry. Possibly you have made a savings bank out of your bosom?" She laughed l.u.s.tily.

Philippina got up: "Yes, it is my money," she confessed with reluctance, and looked at Dorothea hostilely.

"It must be a whole lot. Look out, or some one will steal it from you.

You will have to sleep on your stomach."

Daniel came down from his study, and heard Dorothea laughing. Grief was gnawing at his heart; he pa.s.sed hastily by the door.

XI

One evening, as Philippina came into the hall from the street, she saw a man coming up to her in the dark; he called her by name. She thought she recognised his voice, and on looking at him more closely saw that it was her father.

She had not spoken to him for ten years. She had seen him from time to time at a distance, but she had always made it a point to be going in another direction as soon as she saw him; she avoided him, absolutely.

"What's the news?" she asked in a friendly tone.

Jason Philip cleared his throat, and tried to get out of the light in the hall and back into the shadow: he wished to conceal his shabby clothes from his daughter.

"Now, listen," he began with affected naturalness, "you might inquire about your parents once in a while. The few steps over to our house wouldn't make you break your legs. Honour thy father and thy mother, you know. Your mother deserves any kindness you can show her. As for me, well, I have dressed you down at times, but only when you needed it. You were a mischievous monkey, and you know it."

He laughed; but there was the fire of fear in his eyes. Philippina was the embodiment of silence.

"As I was saying," Jason Philip continued hastily, as if to prevent any inimical memories of his daughter from coming to his mind, "you might pay a little attention to your parents once in a while: Can't you lend me ten marks? I have got to meet a bill to-morrow morning, and I haven't got a pfennig. The boys, you know, I mean your brothers, are conducting themselves splendidly. They give me something the first of each month, and they do it regularly. But I don't like to go to them about this piddling business to-morrow. I thought that as you were right here in the neighbourhood, I could come over and see you about it."

Jason Philip was lying. His sons gave him no help whatsoever. Willibald was living in Breslau, where he had a poorly paid position as a bookkeeper and was just barely making ends meet. Markus was good for nothing, and head over heels in debt.

Philippina thought the matter over for a moment, and then told her father to wait. She went upstairs. Jason Philip waited at the door, whistling softly. Many years had pa.s.sed by since he first attacked the civil powers, urged on by a rebellion of n.o.ble thoughts in his soul.

Many years had pa.s.sed by since he had made his peace with these same civil powers. Nevertheless, he continued to whistle the "Ma.r.s.eillaise."

Philippina came waddling down the steps, dragged herself over to the door, and gave her father a five-mark piece. "There," she bellowed, "I haven't any more myself."

But Jason Philip was satisfied with half the amount he had asked for. He was now equipped for an onslaught on the nearest cafe with its corned beef, sausages, and new beer.

From this time on he came around to the house on aegydius Place quite frequently. He would stand in the hall, look around for Philippina, and if he found her, beg her for money. The amounts Philippina gave him became smaller and smaller. Finally she took to giving him ten pfennigs when he came.

XII

It frequently happened that Daniel would not answer when any one asked him a question. His ear lost the words, his eye the pictures, signs, faces, gestures. He was in his own way; he was a torment to himself.