The Goose Man Part 78

Despite the rain, Daniel and Benda strolled around the city moat until midnight.

The very thing that lay heaviest on Daniel's heart, as was obvious from the expression on his face, he never mentioned. He told of his work, his travels in connection with the old ma.n.u.scripts, his position as organist and in the conservatory, but all in such a general, detached, and distraught way, so tired and bewildered, that Benda was filled with an embarra.s.sed anguish that made courteous attention difficult if not impossible.

In order to get him to talk more freely, Benda remarked that he had not heard of the death of Gertrude and Eleanore until his return. He said he was terribly pained to hear of it, and, try as he might, he could not help but brood over it. But he had no thought of persuading Daniel to give him the mournful details. He merely wished to convince himself that Daniel had become master of the anguish he had gone through,-master of it at least inwardly.

Instead of making a direct and logical reply, Daniel said with a twitching of his lips: "Yes, I know, you have been here for quite a while already. Inwardly I was surprised at your silence. But it is not easy to start up a renewed friendship with such a problematic creature as I am."

"You know you are wrong when you say that," responded Benda calmly, "and therefore I refuse to explain my long waiting. You never were problematic to me, nor are you now. I find you at this moment just as true and whole as you always were, despite the fact that you avoid me, crouch before me, barricade yourself against me."

Daniel's breast heaved as if in the throes of a convulsion. He said falteringly: "First let that old confidence return and grow. I must first become accustomed to the thought that there is a man near me who feels with me, sympathises with me, understands me. To be sure, you want me to talk. But I cannot talk, at least not of those things about which you would like to hear. I am afraid: I shudder at the thought; I have forgotten how; words mock me, make me feel ashamed. Even when I have good dreams, I personally am as happily and blessedly silent in them as the beast of the field. I shudder at the thought of reaching down into my soul and pulling out old, rusty things and showing them to you-mouldy fruit, slag, junk-showing them to you, you who knew me when all within me was crystal."

He fixed his eyes on the clouds and then continued: "But there is probably another means, Friedrich. Look, friend, look! It was always your affair to look, to behold. Look, but see to it that you do not make me writhe before you like a worm in the dust! And when you have looked-wisdom needs only one spoken word for ten that are unspoken.

This one word you will surely draw from me."

Benda, deeply moved, remained silent: "Is it the fault of a woman?" he asked gently, as they crossed the drawbridge and entered the desolate old door leading to the castle.

"The fault of a woman? No! Not really the fault of a woman. It is rather the fault of a man-my fault. Many a fate reaches the decisive point in happiness, many not until coloured with guilt. And guilt is bitter. The fault of a woman!" he repeated, in a voice that threw off a gruesome echo in the vaulted arch of the gateway to the castle. "There is to be sure a woman there; and when one has anything to do with her, he finds himself with nothing left but his eyes for weeping."

They left the gateway. Benda laid one hand on Daniel's shoulder, and pointed in silence at the sky with the other. There were no stars to be seen; nothing but clouds. Benda however had the stars in mind. Daniel understood his gesture. His eyelids closed; around his mouth there was an expression of vehement grief.

II

Benda was convinced, not merely that one great misfortune had already taken place, but that a still greater was in the making.

Whenever he thought of Dorothea, the picture that came to his mind was one that filled him with fear. And yet, he thought, she must have some remarkable traits, otherwise Daniel would never have chosen her as his life companion. He wanted to meet her.

He had Daniel invite him in to tea. He called one evening early in the afternoon.

She received him with expressions of ostentatious joy. She said she could hardly wait until he came, for there was nothing in the world that made such an impression on her as a man who had really run great risks, who had placed his very life at stake. She could not become tired of asking him questions. At each of his laconic replies she would shake her head with astonishment. Then she rested her elbows on her knees, placed her head in her hands, bent over and stared at him as though he were some kind of prodigy-or monster.

She asked him whether he had been among cannibals, whether he had shot any savages, whether he had hunted lions, and whether it was really true that every Negro chieftain had hundreds of wives. When she asked this question she made an insidious face, and remarked that Europeans would do the same thing if the law allowed.

Thereupon she said that she could not recall having seen him, when still a child, in her father's house, and she was surprised at this, for he had such a striking personality. She devoured him with her eyes; they began to burn as they always did when she wanted to make some kind of human capture, and blind greed came over her. She unbent; she spoke in her very sweetest voice; in her laugh and her smile there was, in fact, something irresistible, something like that trait we notice in good, confiding, but at times obstinate children.

But she noticed that this man studied her, not as if she were a young married woman who were trying to please him and gain his sympathy, rather as a curious variety of the human species. There was something in his face that made her tremble with irritation, and all of a sudden her eyes were filled with hate and distrust.

Benda felt sorry for her. This everlasting attempt to make a seductive gesture, this fishing for words that would convey a double meaning, this self-betrayal, this excitement about nothing, made him feel sad.

Dorothea did not seem to him a bad woman. Whatever else she might be accused of, it did not seem to him that she was guilty of downright immoral practices. He felt that she was merely misguided, poisoned, a phantom and a fool.

His mind went back to certain Ethiopian women in the very heart of Africa; he thought of their n.o.ble walk, the proud restfulness of their features, their chaste nudeness, and their inseparability from the earth and the air.

He nevertheless understood his friend: the musician could not help but succ.u.mb to the charms of the phantom; the lonely man sought the least lonely of all human beings.

As he was coming to this conclusion, Daniel entered the room. He greeted Benda, and said to Dorothea: "There is a girl outside who says she has some ostrich feathers for you. Did you order any feathers?"

"Oh, yes," replied Dorothea hastily, "it is a present from my friend, Emmy b.u.t.tinger."

"Who's she?"

"You don't know her? Why, she is the sister of Frau Feistelmann. You must help me," she said, turning to Benda, "for you must know all about this kind of things. There where you have been ostriches must be as thick as chickens here at home." Laughing, she went out, and returned in due time with a big box, from which, cautiously and with evident delight, she took two big feathers, one white, one black. Holding them by the stem, she laid them across her hair, stepped up to the mirror, and looked at herself with an intoxicated mien.

In this mien there was something so extraordinary, indeed uncanny, that Benda could not help but cast a horrified glance at Daniel.

"This is the first time I ever knew what a mirror was," he said to himself.

III

That evening Daniel visited Benda in his home. Benda showed him some armour and implements he had brought back with him from Africa. In explaining some of the more unusual objects, he described at length the customs of the African blacks.

Then he was seized with a headache, sat down in his easy chair, and was silent for a long while. He suddenly looked like an old man. The ravages his health had suffered while in the tropics became visible.

"Did you ever see Dorothea's mother?" he asked, by way of breaking the long silence.

Daniel shook his head: "It is said that she is vegetating, a mere shadow of her former self, in some kind of an inst.i.tution in Erlangen," he replied.

"I have been told that neither Andreas Doderlein nor his daughter has ever, in all these years, taken the slightest interest in the unfortunate woman," continued Benda. "Well, as to Andreas Doderlein, I have always known what to expect of him."

Daniel looked up. "You hinted once that Doderlein was guilty of reprehensible conduct with regard to his wife. Do you recall? Is that in any way connected with Dorothea and her life? Do you care to discuss the matter?"

"I have no objection whatever to throwing such light on the incident as I have," replied Benda. "It does have to do with Dorothea, and it explains, perhaps, some things about her. That is, it is possible that her character is in part due to the kind of father she grew up under and the kind of mother she lost when a mere child. It is strange the way these things work out: I am myself, in a way, interwoven with your own fate."

He was silent for a while; memories were rushing to his mind. Then he began: "If you had ever known Marguerite Doderlein, she would have been just as unforgettable to you as she is to me. She and Eleanore-those were the two really musical women I have known in my life. They were both all nature, all soul. Marguerite's youth was a prison; her brother Carovius was the jailer. When she married Doderlein, she somehow fancied she would escape from that prison, but she merely exchanged one for the other. And yet she hardly knew how it all came about. She accepted everything just as it came to her with unwavering fidelity and gentleness. Her soul remained unlacerated, unembittered."

He rested his head on his hand; his voice became gentler. "We loved one another before we had ever spoken a word to each other. We met each other a few times on the street, once in a while in the park; and a number of times she stole up to me in the theatre. I was not reserved: I offered her my life, but she always insisted that she could not live without her child and be happy. I respected her feelings and restrained my own. For a while things went on in this way. We tortured ourselves, practised resignation, but were drawn together again, and then Doderlein suddenly began to be suspicious. Whether his suspicion was due to whisperings or to what he himself had at some time seen his wife do-it was impossible for her to play the hypocrite-I really do not know. At any rate he began to abuse her in the most perfidious manner. He tried to disturb her conscience. One night he went to her bed with a crucifix in his hand, and made her swear, swear on the life of her child, that she would never deceive him. He used all manner of threats and unctuous fustian. She took the oath."

"Yes, my friend, she took the oath. And this oath seemed to her much more solemn and serious than the oath she had taken at the altar the day they were married. I knew nothing about it; she kept out of my sight. I could not endure it. One day she came to me again to say good-bye. There followed a moment when human strength was no longer of avail, and human deliberation the emptiest of words. The fatal situation developed. The delicately moulded woman succ.u.mbed to a sense of guilt; her heart grew irresponsive to feelings, her mind dark. She was stricken with the delusion that her child was slowly dying in her arms, and one day she collapsed completely. The rest is known."

Benda got up, went over to the window, and looked out into the darkness.

Daniel felt as if a rope were being tightened about his neck. He too got up, murmured a farewell, and left.

IV

He had reached the Behaim monument when he began to walk more slowly. A short distance before him he saw a man and a woman. He recognized Dorothea.

They were speaking very rapidly and in subdued tones. Daniel followed them; and when they reached the door of his house and turned to go in, he stopped in the shadow of the church.

The man seemed to be angry and excited: Dorothea was trying to quiet him. She was standing close by him; she held his hand in hers until she unlocked the door. First she whispered, looked up at the house anxiously, and then said out loud: "Good night, Edmund. Sweet dreams!"

The man went on his way without lifting his hat. Dorothea hastened in.

Daniel was trembling in his whole body. There was something in his eyes that seemed to be beseeching; and there was something mystic about them.

He watched until the light had been lighted upstairs and the window shade drawn. He was tortured by the stillness of the Square; when the clock in the tower struck eleven he thought he could hear the blood roaring in his ears.

It was only with difficulty that he dragged himself into the house.

Dorothea, already in her night-gown, was sitting at the table in the living room, sewing a ribbon on the dress she had just been wearing: it had somehow got loose.