The Goose Man. Jakob Wassermann
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works, had once painted it. It showed a man of serious bearing, and brought to mind the princely guildsman of the Middle Ages. Seeing the picture at that moment enlightened Daniel as to the ancestral strain that had brought him to this mood and to this hour.
And turning now once more to Jason Philip’s face, he thought he perceived in it the restlessness of an evil conscience. It seemed to him that this man was not acting from conviction but from an antecedent determination. It seemed to him further that he was faced, not merely by this one man and his rage and its accidental causes, but by a whole world in arms that was pledged to enmity against him. He had no inclination now to await the end of Jason Philip’s oratorical efforts, and left the room.
Jason Philip grew pale. “Don’t let us deceive ourselves, Marian,” he said. “You have nursed a viper on your bosom.”
Daniel stood by the Wolfram fountain in the square, and let the purple of the setting sun shine upon him. Round about him the stones and the beams of the ancient houses glowed, and the maids who came with pails to fetch water at the fountain gazed with astonishment into the brimming radiance of the sky. At this hour his native town grew very dear to Daniel. When Jason Philip entered the square, at the corner of which the stage-coach was waiting, he did his best not to be seen by Daniel and avoided him in a wide semi-circle. But Daniel turned around and fastened his eyes on the man, who strode rapidly and gazed stubbornly aside.
This thing too has happened before and will happen again. Nor is it amazing that the fugitive should turn and inspire terror in his pursuer.
IX
Daniel saw that he could not stay to be a burden to his mother with her small resources. She was poor and dependent on the judgment of a tyrannical kinsman. Mastering his passionate impulses, he forced himself to cool reflection and made a plan. He would have to work and earn so much money that after a year or more he would be able to go to Andreas Döderlein and remind him of his magnanimous offer. So he studied the advertisements in the papers and wrote letters of application. A printer in Mannheim wanted an assistant correspondent. Since he agreed to take the small wage offered, he was summoned to that city. Marian gave him his railway fare.
He endured the torment for three months. Then it grew unbearable. For seven months he slaved for an architect in Stuttgart, next four months for the municipal bath in Baden-Baden, finally for six weeks in a cigarette factory in Kaiserslautern.
He lived like a dog. In terror of having to spend money, he avoided all human intercourse. He was unspeakably lonely. Hunger and self-denial made him as lean as a rope. His cheeks grew hollow, his limbs trembled in their sockets. He patched his own clothes, and to save his shoes hammered curved bits of iron to the heels and toes. His aim sustained him; Andreas Döderlein beckoned in the distance.
Every night he counted the sum he had saved so far. And when at last, after sixteen months of self-denial, he had a fortune of two hundred marks, he thought he could risk the fateful step. As he reckoned and according to his present standard of life, he thought that this money would last him five months. Within that period new sources might open. He had come to know many people and had experienced many circumstances, but in reality he had known no one and experienced nothing, for he had stood in the world like a lantern with a covered light. With an enormous expenditure of energy he had restrained his mind from its native activity. He had throttled it for the sake of its future. Hence his whole soul had now the temperature of a blast furnace.
On his trip his fare was the accustomed one of dry bread and cheese. He had made a package of his few books and his music, and had despatched it in care of the railway station in Nuremberg. It was early spring. In fair weather he slept in the open. When it rained he took refuge in barns. A little bundle was his pillow and his ragged top-coat shielded him from frost. Not rarely farmers received him in kindly fashion and gave him a meal. Now and then a tramping apprentice joined him. But his silence did not invite companionship.
Once in the neighbourhood of Kitzingen he came upon a high fenced park. Under a maple tree in the park sat a young girl in a white dress reading a book. A voice called: “Sylvia!” Thereupon the girl arose, and with unforgettable grace of movement walked deeper into the garden.
And Daniel thought: Sylvia! A sound as though from a better world. He shuddered. Was it to be his lot to stand without a gate of life that gave everything to the eyes and nothing to the hands?
X
He sought out Andreas Döderlein at once. He was told that the professor was not in town. Two weeks later he stood once more before the old house. He was told that the professor could not be seen to-day. He was discouraged. But out of loyalty to his cause he returned at the end of three days and was received.
He entered an overheated room. The professor was sitting in an arm chair. On his knees was his little, eight-year-old daughter; in his right arm he held a large doll. The white tiles of the stove were adorned with pictured scenes from the Nibelungen legend; table and chairs were littered with music scores; the windows had leaded panes; in one corner there was a mass of artfully grouped objects—peacocks’ feathers, gay-coloured silks, Chinese fans. This combination was known as a Makart bouquet, and represented the taste of the period.
Döderlein put the little girl down and gave her her doll. Then he drew himself up to the fulness of his gigantic stature, a process that gave him obvious pleasure. His neck was so fat that his chin seemed to rest on a gelatinous mass.
He seemed not to recall Daniel. Cues had to be given him to distinguish this among his crowded memories. He snapped his fingers. It was a sign that his mind had reached the desired place. “Ah, yes, yes, yes! To be sure, to be sure, my dear young man! But what do you suppose? Just now when all available space is as crowded as a street strewn with crumbs is crowded with sparrows. We might take the matter up again in autumn. Yes, in autumn something might be done.”
A pause, during which the great man gave inarticulate sounds of profound regret. And was the young man, after all, so sure of a genuine talent? Had he considered that art was becoming more and more an idling place for the immature and the shipwrecked? It was so difficult to tell the sheep from the goats. And finally, granting talent, how was the young man equipped in the matter of moral energy? There, indisputably, the core of the problem was to be sought. Or didn’t he, perhaps, think so?
As through a fog Daniel observed that the little girl had approached him and looked him over with a curiously cold and testing glance. Almost he was impelled to stretch out his hand and cover the eyes of the child, whose manner was uncanny to him through some ghostly presentiment.
“I’m truly sorry that I can’t give you a more encouraging outlook.” Andreas Döderlein’s voice was oily, and showed a conscious delight in its own sound. “But as I said, there’s nothing to be done until autumn. Suppose you leave me your address. Put it down on this slip. No? Well, quite as you wish. Good-bye, young man, good-bye.”
Döderlein accompanied him to the door. Then he returned to his daughter, took her on his knee, picked up the doll, and said: “Human beings, my dear Dorothea, are a wretched set. If I were to compare them to sparrows on the road, I should be doing the sparrows but little honour. Heavens and earth! Wouldn’t even write his name on a slip of paper. Felt hurt! Well, well, well. What funny creatures men are. Wouldn’t leave his name. Well, well.”
He hummed the Walhalla motif, and Dorothea, bending over her doll, coquettishly kissed the waxen face.
Daniel, standing in front of the house, bit his lips like a man in a fever who does not want his teeth to rattle. Why, the depth of his soul asked him, why did you sit in their counting-houses and waste their time? Why did you crucify your body and bind my wings? Why were you deaf to me and desirous of gathering fruits where there are only stones? Why