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 noble 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 succumb 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 Buettinger."

"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 institution in Erlangen," he replied.

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

Daniel looked up. "You hinted once that Doederlein 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 Doederlein, 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 Doederlein, 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 Doederlein 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 succumbed 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.

They spoke to each other. Daniel stood behind her, near the stove, and looked over at the back of her bared neck as if held by a spell. One cold shiver after another was running through his body.

"Who gave you those ostrich feathers?" he asked, suddenly and rather brusquely. The question slipped from his lips before he himself was aware of it. He would have liked to say something else.

Dorothea raised her head with a jerk. "I thought I told you," she replied, and he noticed that she coloured up.

"I cannot believe that a perfect stranger, and a woman at that, is making you such costly presents," said Daniel slowly.

Dorothea got up, and looked at him rather undecidedly. "Very well, if you simply must know, I bought them myself," she said with unusual defiance. "But you don't need to try to browbeat me like that; I'll get the money that I paid for them. And you needn't think for a minute that I am going to let you draw up a family budget, and expect to make me live by it."

"You didn't buy those feathers," said Daniel, cutting her off in the middle of her harangue.

"I didn't buy them, and they were not given to me! How did I get them then? Stole them perhaps?" Dorothea was scornful; but cowardice made it impossible for her to look Daniel in the face.

"I have never in my life talked to any one in this way, nor has any one ever spoken to me like that," thought Daniel to himself. He turned deathly pale, went up to her, and placed his hand like an iron vise about her arm. "I shall permit you to waste my money; I shall not object if you fritter your time away in the company of good-for-nothing people; if you regard my health and peace of mind as of no consequence whatever, I shall say nothing; if you let your poor little child suffer and pine away, I shall keep quiet. I shall submit to all of this. And why shouldn't I? Why should I want to have my meals served at regular hours? Why should I insist that my morning coffee be warm and my rolls fresh from the baker? Why should I be so exacting as to ask that my clothes be mended, my windows washed, my room swept, and my table in order? I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth; I have never known what it was to be comfortable."

"Oh, listen, Daniel, it's too bad about you," said Dorothea in an anxious tone, "but let go of my arm."

He loosened his grip on her arm, but did not let it go. "You may associate with whomsoever you please. Let those people treasure you to whom you are a treasure. So far as money is concerned, you can have all that I have. Here it is, take it." He drew from his pocket an embroidered purse filled with coins, and hurled them on the table. "So that you can wear fine dresses, I will play the organ on Sundays. So that you can go to masquerade balls and parties of all kinds, I will try to beat a little music into some twenty-odd unmusical idiots. I will do more than that: I will promise never to bother myself about your behaviour: I will never ask you where you have been or where you are going. But listen, Dorothea," he said, as his face flushed with anger and anxiety, his voice rising as if by unconscious pressure, "don't you ever dare dishonour my name! It is the only thing I have. I owe humanity an irreparable debt for it. It invests me not simply with what is known as civic honour, it gives me also the honour I feel and enjoy when I stand in the presence of what I have created. Lie, and you besmirch my name! Lie, and you sully and debase it! I am probably not as much afraid as you think I am of being regarded as a cuckold, though I admit that the thought of it makes my blood boil. But I want to say to you here and now, that when I think of you in the arms of another man I feel within me a deep desire, a real lust for murder. But you would throw me into the last pit of hell and damnation, if you were to repay the truths I have told you and given you with lies, lies, lies. You must not, you dare not, imagine for a minute that I am so selfish and vulgar as not to be able to understand that a change might come over your heart. But that is one thing; telling a lie and living a lie is quite another. It is impossible for me to live side by side with another human being except in absolute truth. A lie, the lie, crushes what there is in me of the divine. A lie to me is carrion and corruption. Tell me, then, whether you have been and are true to me! Don't be afraid, Dorothea, and don't be ashamed. Everything may be right yet and work out as it should. But tell me: Have you been deceiving me?"

"I—deceiving you?" breathed Dorothea, and looked into his face as if hypnotised, never so much as moving an eyelash. "What do you mean? Deceiving you? Do you really think that I would be capable of such baseness?"

"You have no lover? No other man has touched you since you have been my wife?"

"A lover? Some other man has touched me?" she repeated with that same hypnotic look. In her child-like face there was the glow of unadulterated honour and undiluted innocence.

"You have been having no secret rendezvous, you have not been receiving treacherous letters, nor writing them, you have promised no man anything, not even in jest?"

"Ah, well now, Daniel, listen! In jest. That's another matter. Who knows? You know me, and you know how one talks and laughs."

"And you assure me that all this mysterious abuse that is being whispered into my ears and to which your conduct has given a certain amount of plausibility is nothing in the world but wickedness on the part of people who know us, nothing but calumny?"

"Yes, Daniel: it is merely wickedness, meanness, and calumny."

"You are willing that God above should never grant you another minute of peace, if you have been lying to me? Do you wish that, Dorothea?"

Dorothea balked; she blinked a little. Then she said quite softly: "Those are terrible words, Daniel. But if you insist upon it, I am willing to abide by the curse you have made a possibility."

Daniel breathed a breath of relief. He felt that a mighty load had been taken from his heart. And in grateful emotion he went up to his wife, and pressed her to his bosom.

But at the same time he was repelled by something. He felt that the creature he was pressing to his heart was without rhythm, or vibration, or law, or order. He began again to be gnawed at by torture, this time of a new species and coming from another direction.

As he opened the door to the hall, he heard a rustle; and he saw a dark figure hastening over to the room that opened on the court.

V

Left alone, Dorothea stared for a while into space, as motionless as a statue. Then she took her violin and bow from the case—she had bought a new bow to take the place of the one that had been broken—and began to play: a cadence, a trill, a waltz. Her face took on a hardened, resolute expression.

She soon let the instrument fall from her hands, and began to think. She laid the violin to one side, took off her slippers, sneaked out of the room in her stocking feet and across the hall, and listened at the door to Philippina's room. She opened it cautiously and heard a sound snoring from Philippina's bed, which stood next to the door.

The lamp had almost burned down; it gave so little light that the bed clothes could hardly be seen.

She stole up to Philippina's couch of repose, step by step, without making the slightest noise, bent down, stretched out her arm, groped around over the body of the inexplicable creature who was sleeping there, and was on the point of raising the covers and reaching for Philippina's breast. Philippina ceased snoring, woke up as if she had been struck in the face by the rays of a magic lantern, opened her eyes, and looked at Dorothea with a speechless threat. Not a muscle of her face moved.

Dorothea collected her thoughts instantly. With the expression on her face of one who has just succeeded in carrying out some good joke, she threw her whole body on Philippina and pressed her face to her cheek, nauseated though she was by the stench of her breath and the bed clothes.

"Listen, Philippina, the American wants to give you something," she whispered.

"Jesus, you're punching my belly in," replied Philippina, and gasped for breath. When Dorothea had straightened up, she said: "Well, has he already given you something? That's the main thing."

"He gave me the feathers. Isn't that something?" replied Dorothea, "and he is going to give me a set of rubies."

"I wish you already had 'em. It seems to me that your American don't exactly hail from Givetown. I've been told that he ain't so damn rich after all. When are you goin' to meet him again, your lover?"

"To-morrow evening, between six and seven. Oh, I am so glad, so glad, Philippina. He is so young."

"Yes, young! That's a lot, ain't it?" murmured Philippina contemptuously.

"He has such a pretty mole on his neck, way down on his neck, down there," she said, pointing to the same spot on Philippina's neck. "Right there! Does it tickle you? Does it make you feel good?"

"Don't laugh so loud, you'll waken little Gottfried," said Philippina in a testy, morose tone. "And get out of here! I'm sleepy."

"Good-night, then, you pesky old dormouse," said Dorothea, in seemingly good-natured banter, and left the room.

Hardly had she closed the door behind her when Philippina sprang like an enraged demon from her bed, clenched her fist, and hissed: "Damned thief and whore! She wanted to rob me, that's what she did, the dirty wench! You wait! Your days in this place are numbered. Somebody's going to squeal, believe me, and when they do, they'll get you right."

She drew her red petticoat over her legs, tied it tightly, and went to the door to lock it. The lock had been out of order for some time; she could not budge it. She carried a chair over to the door, placed it directly underneath the lock, folded her arms, sat down on it, and remained sitting there for an hour or so blinking her evil eyes.

When no longer able to keep from going to sleep, she got up, placed the folding table against the door, and got back into bed, murmuring imprecations such as were second nature to her.

VI

The following day began with a heavy rain storm. Daniel had had a restless night; he went to his work quite early. But his head was so heavy that he had to stop every now and then, and rest it on his hand. There was no blood, no swing to his ideas.

Toward eight o'clock the postman came, and asked for Inspector Jordan. The old man had to sign a receipt in acknowledgment of a solemnly sealed money order.

In the letter the postman gave him were two hundred dollars in bills and a note from Benno. The letter had been mailed in Galveston. Benno wrote that he had made inquiries and found that his father was still living. He said he had been quite successful in the New World, and as a proof of his prosperity he was sending him the enclosed sum, with the best of greetings, in payment for the trouble he had cost his father.

It was a cold epistle. But the old man was beside himself with joy. He ran to Daniel and then to Philippina, held the crisp notes in the air, and stammered: "Look, people! He is rich. He has sent me two hundred dollars! He has become an honest man, he has. He remembers his old father, he does! Really this is a great day! A great day, Daniel, because of something else that has just been finished." He added with a mysterious smile: "A blessed day in the history of a great cause!"

He dressed and went down town; he wanted to tell his friends the news.

Daniel called down to know if his breakfast was ready; nobody answered. Thereupon he went to the kitchen, and got himself a bottle of milk and a loaf of bread. Philippina came in a little later. Her hair looked as though a hurricane had struck it; she was in her worst humour. She snarled at Daniel, asking him why in the name of God he couldn't wait till the coffee had been boiled.

"Leave me in peace, Philippina," he said, "I need peace."

"Peace!" she roared, "peace, the same old story: you want peace!" She threw a wild, contemptuous glance at the open chest containing Daniel's scores, leaned against the table, put the tips of her dirty fingers on the score he was then studying, and shrieked: "There is the cause of the whole malheur! The whole malheur, I say, comes from this damned note-smearing of yours! The idea of a man settin' down and dabbing them pot-hooks on good white paper, day after day, year in and year out! What does it all mean? Tell me! While you're doin' it, everything else is moving—like a crab, backwards. Jesus, you're a man, and yet you spend your time at that kind of stuff! I'd be ashamed to admit it."

Not prepared for this enigmatic outburst of anger and hate, Daniel looked at Philippina utterly dazed. "Get out of here," he cried indignantly. "Get out of here, I say," and pointed to the door.

She got out. "The damned dabbery!" she bellowed with reinforced maliciousness.

From ten to twelve, Daniel had to lecture at the conservatory. His heart beat violently, though he was unable to explain his excitement. It was more than a foreboding: he felt as if he had heard a piece of terribly bad news and the real nature of it had slipped his memory.

He did not go home for luncheon; he ate in the cafe at the Carthusian Gate. Then he took a long walk out over the fields and meadows. It had stopped raining, and the brisk wind refreshed him. He stood for a long while on the banks of the canal, and watched some men piling bricks at a brick-kiln. From time to time he took a piece of paper from his pocket, and wrote something on it with his pencil: it was notes.

Once he wrote alongside of a motif: "Farewell, my music!" His eyes were filled with dreadful tears.

He returned to the city just as the sun was setting; it looked like a huge ball of fire in the west. The sky shone out between two great black clouds like the forge of a smithy. He could not help but think of Eleanore.

He entered his living room, and paced back and forth. Philippina came in, and asked him whether she should warm up his soup for him. Her unnatural, singing tone attracted his attention; he looked at her very closely.

"Where is my wife?" he asked.

Philippina's face betrayed an abysmally mean smile, but she never said a word.

"Where is my wife?" he asked a second time, after a pause.

Philippina's smile became brighter. "Is it cold out?" she asked, and in a moment she had left the room. Daniel stared at her as if he feared she had lost her mind. In a few minutes she came back. In the meantime she had put on a cloak that was much too short for her, and beneath which the loud, freakish skirt of her checkered dress could be seen.

"Daniel, come along with me," she said in an anxious voice. To Daniel her voice sounded mysterious and fearful. "Come along with me, Daniel! I want to show you something."

He turned pale, put on his hat, and followed her. They crossed the square in silence, went through Binder Street, Town Hall Street, and across the Market. Daniel stopped. "What are you up to?" he asked with a hoarse voice.

"Come along! You'll see," whispered Philippina.

They walked on, crossed the Meat Bridge, went through Kaiser Street and the White Tower to St. James's Place. Some people looked at the odd couple in amazement. When they reached Frau Hadebusch's little house, it was dark. "Listen, Philippina, are you ever going to talk?" said Daniel, gritting his teeth.

"Psh!" Philippina knew what she was doing. She put her mouth to Daniel's ear, and whispered: "Go up two flights, quick, you know the house, bang on the door, and if it's locked, bust it in. In the meantime I'll go to Frau Hadebusch so that she can't interfere."

Then Daniel understood.

VII

Everything became blood-red before his eyes; he was seized with a feverish chill.

He had followed Philippina with a dejected, limp feeling of disgust, fear and coercion. Now he knew what it was all about. At the very beginning of the events he saw the middle and the end. He saw before the bolted door what was going on behind it. His soul was seized with horror, rage, woe, contempt, and terror. He felt dizzy; he feared lie might lose consciousness.

He sprang up the creaking stairs by leaps and bounds. He stood before the door behind which he had gone hungry, been cold, and glowed with enthusiasm as a young man. Silence should have reigned there now, so that the devotion of retrospective spirits might not be molested on the grave of so many, many hopes.

He jerked at the latch; a scream was heard from within. The door was bolted. He pressed his body against the fragile wood so violently that both hinges, and the latch, gave way, and the door fell on to the middle of the floor with a mighty crash.

The scream was repeated, this time in a more piercing tone. Dorothea was lying on a big bed with nothing on but a flimsy chemise. Frau Hadebusch, pimp always, had rented the bed from a second-hand dealer; it covered a half of the room. Before Dorothea was a plate of cherries; she had been amusing herself by shooting the pits at her lover. He likewise was lacking nearly all the garments ordinarily worn by men when in the presence of women. He was sitting astride on a chair, smoking a short-stemmed pipe.

When Daniel, with bloody hands—he had scratched himself while breaking in the door—with his hair flying wild about his face, panting, and pale as death, stepped over the door, Dorothea again began to scream; she screamed seven or eight times. She was filled with despair and terrible anxiety.

Daniel rushed at the young man, and seized him by the throat. While he held the American in a death-like grip, while he saw Dorothea, as if in a roseate haze, with uplifted arms, leave the bed screaming at the top of her voice, while an extraordinary power of observation, despite his insane rage, came over him, while he watched the cherries as they rolled across the bed and saw the green stems, some of which were withered, showing that the cherries were half rotten, while he felt a taste on his tongue as if he too had eaten cherries—while he saw all these things and had this sensation, he thought to himself without either doubt or relief: "This is the downfall; this is chaos."

The American—it later became known that he was a wandering artist who had, with an equal amount of nerve and adroitness, worked his way into the private social life of the city—thrust his antagonist back with all his might, and struck up the position of a professional boxer. Daniel, however, gave him no time to strike; he fell on him, wrapped his arms tight about him, threw him to the floor, and was trying to choke him. He groaned, struggled, got his fist loose, struck Daniel in the face, and cried, "You damned fool!" But it was the cry of a whipped man.

Loud noise broke out downstairs. A crowd of people collected on the sidewalk. "Police, police!" shrieked the shrill voice of a woman. The people began to make their way up the stairs.

"Oh, oh, oh!" moaned Dorothea. In half a minute she had her dress on. "Out of this place and away," she said, as she looked for her gloves and umbrella.

Frau Hadebusch appeared in the hall, wringing her hands. Behind her stood Philippina. Two men forced their way in, ran up to Daniel and the American, and tried to separate them. But they had bitten into each other like two mad dogs; and it was necessary to call for help. A soldier and the milkman gave a hand; and finally two policemen appeared on the scene.

"I must go home," cried Dorothea, while the other women shrieked and carried on. "I must go home, and get my things and leave."

With the face of one possessed and at the same time dumb, Philippina stole out from among the excited crowd and followed Dorothea. She did not feel that she was walking; she could not feel the pavement under her feet; she was unconscious of the air. That wild inspiration returned to her which she had experienced once before in her life—the time she went up in the attic and saw Gertrude's lifeless body hanging from a rafter.

Her veins pulsed with a hot lust for destruction. "Swing the torch!" That was the cry she heard running through her brain. "Swing the torch!" But she wanted to do something much more pretentious this time than merely start a fire in some rubbish. The farther she went the more rapidly she walked. Finally she began to run and sing with a loud, coarse voice. Her cloak was not buttoned; it flew in the air. The people who saw her stopped and looked at her, amazed.

VIII

Herr Carovius and Jordan were sitting in the Paradise Cafe.

"How things change, and how everything clears up and straightens out!" remarked Jordan.

"Yes, the open graves are gaping again," said Herr Carovius cynically.

"So far as I am concerned," continued Jordan, without noticing the aversion his affability had aroused in Herr Carovius, "I can now face death with perfect peace of mind. My mission is ended; my work is done."

"That sounds as if you had discovered the philosopher's stone," remarked Herr Carovius sarcastically.

"Perhaps," replied Jordan gently and bent over the table. "You are after all not entirely wrong, my honoured friend. Do you wish to be convinced? Will you honour me with a visit?"

Herr Carovius had become curious. They paid their bills and left for AEgydius Place.

Having entered Jordan's room, the old man lighted a lamp and bolted the door. He then opened the door of the great cabinet by the wall, and took out a big doll. It was dressed like a Swiss maid, had on a flowered skirt, a linen waist, and a little pink apron. Its yellow hair was done up in braids, and on its head was a little felt hat.

"All that is my handiwork," said Jordan, with much show of pride. "I myself took all the measurements and made the clothes, including even the shoes. And now watch, my dear friend."

He placed the doll in the middle of the room. "She will speak," he continued, his face radiant with joy, "she will sing. She will sing a song native to her beloved Tyrol. Will you be so good as to take this chair? I would rather not have you so close to it, if I may, for there are certain noises which I still have to correct. The illusion is stronger when you are some distance away."

He crouched down behind the doll, did something at its back, and the buzzing of wheels became audible. The old man then stepped out to the front of the doll, and said: "Now, my little girl, let's hear what you can do!"

An uncanny, hoarse, somewhat cooing voice rang out from the body of the doll. It sounded like the vibrations of metallic strings accompanied by the low tones of a water whistle. If you closed your eyes, you could at least imagine you were hearing a song sung by some one in the distance. But if you looked at the thing closely with its lifeless, mask-like kindly, waxen face, and heard the shrill, muffled sounds, without either articulation or rhythm, coming from within, it took on a ghostly aspect. Herr Carovius in fact felt a cold chill creep down his back.

When the machine ran down, the doll's eyelids and lips closed. Jordan was looking at Herr Carovius in great suspense. "Well, what do you think of it?" he asked. "Be quite frank; I can stand any amount of criticism."

Herr Carovius had great difficulty to keep from bursting out laughing. His mouth and chin itched. Suddenly, however, scorn and contempt left him; he fell into a disagreeably serious frame of mind, and a softness, a mildness such as he had not felt since time immemorial stole over his heart. He said: "That is a perfectly splendid invention! Perfectly splendid! Though it does need some improvement."

Jordan nodded zealously and with joyous approval. He was on the point of going into a detailed description of the mechanism and its artistic construction, when the two men heard a strange noise in the adjoining room. They stopped and listened. They could hear some one moving the furniture; there were steps back and forth; they heard a hammering and pounding as if some one were trying to open a box. This was followed by a sound that resembled the falling of paper on the floor; it lasted for some time, bunch apparently following bunch. Listen! Some one is talking in an abusive voice! What's that? A gruesome, sing-song voice repeating unintelligible words: "I-oi! huh, huh! I-oi, huh-huh!" There is a sound as if of crackling fire. The flames cannot be seen; but they can be heard!

Old Jordan jerked the door open, and cried like a child.

Philippina was standing in the midst of a pile of burning papers. She had forced Daniel's trunk open, thrown every one of his scores on the floor, and set them on fire. She was a fearful object to behold. Her hair hung down loose and straggly over her shoulders, she was swinging her arms as if she were working a pump-handle, and from her mouth poured forth a volley of loud, babbling, gurgling tones that bore not the faintest resemblance to anything human. Her face, lightened by the flames, was coloured with the trace of fearful voluptuousness. Herr Carovius and old Jordan stood in the doorway as if paralysed. Seeing them, she began to hop about, and stretched out her upraised arms to the flames, which were leaping higher and higher.

Herr Carovius, awakening from his torpidity, saw that it was high time to make some effort to escape. Shielding his face with his hands, he fled as fast as his feet could carry him to the hall door and down the steps. Tears were gushing down Jordan's cheeks; fear had made it impossible for him to reflect. He ran back into his room, opened the window, and called out to the people on the square. Then he chanced to think of his beloved doll. He rushed up to it and took it under his arm. But when he tried to leave the room, the smoke blew into his face, benumbing and burning him. He staggered, reached the top of the stairs, made a misstep, fell headlong down the steps, still holding the doll in convulsive embrace, twitched a few times, and then lay lifeless on the hall floor.

Heart failure had put an end to his life.

Dorothea, who had been in the house packing her things, hastened, luggage in hand, past the corpse. Her face was ashen; she never looked at the dead body of Inspector Jordan. She was soon lost in the crowd of excited people. She had vanished.

IX

The police had at last separated Daniel and the American in Frau Hadebusch's house. Daniel fell on a chair, and gazed stupidly into space. Frau Hadebusch brought him some water. The American put on his clothes, while the spectators looked on and laughed.

The two men were then taken to the police station, where the lieutenant in charge took such depositions as were necessary for court action. Daniel saw a gas lamp, a quill pen, several grinning faces, his own bloody hand, and nothing more. The American was held in order to protect him from further attacks; Daniel was released. He heard the young man tell his story in a mangled German and with a voice that was nearly choked with rage, but did not absorb anything he said.

He heard a dog bark, a wagon rattle, a bell strike; he heard people talking, murmuring, crying; he heard the scraping of feet. But it all sounded to him like noises that were reaching his ears through the walls of a prison. He went on his way; his gait was unsteady.

As he reached the Church of Our Lady, Daniel turned to the right toward the Market Place, and saw the Goose Man standing before him.

"Go home," the Goose Man seemed to say with a sad voice. "Go home!"

"Who are you? what do you wish of me?" A voice within him asked. But then it seemed that the figure had become invisible, and that it could not be seen again until it was far off in the distance, where it was being shone upon by a bright light.

People were running across AEgydius Place; some of them were crying "Fire!" Daniel turned the corner; he could see his house. Flames were leaping up behind his window. He pressed his hands to his temples, and, with eyes wide open and filled with terror, he forced his way through the crowd up to his house. "For God's sake, for Heaven's sake!" he cried, "save my trunk!"

Many looked at him. A figure appeared at the window; many arms were pointed at it. "The woman! Look, look, the woman!" came a cry from the crowd. And then again: "She has set the house on fire! She has swung the torch and started the fire!"

Daniel rushed into his house. Firemen overtook him. There he saw in the hall, lighted by the lanterns being carried back and forth so swiftly, and placed in the corner with no more care or consideration than was possible under such circumstances, the dead body of old Jordan. His body, and close beside it, as if in supernatural mockery of all things human, the doll, the Swiss maid with the machine in her stomach. Sighing and sobbing, he fell down; his forehead touched the dead hand of the old man.

As if in a dream he heard the hissing of the hoses, the commands, the hurried running back and forth of the firemen. Then he felt as if a shadow, a figure from the lower world, suddenly rose before him. A clenched fist, he thought, opened and hurled shreds of paper into his face. When he looked up he could see nothing but the firemen rushing around him. The shadow, the figure, had pushed its way in among them, and in the confusion no one had paid any attention to it.

With an absent-minded gesture, Daniel reached out and picked up the paper that was lying nearest him. It had fallen on the face of the doll. He unfolded it and saw, written in his own hand, the music to the "Harzreise im Winter." Under the notes were the words:

But aside, who is it? His path in the bushes is lost, Behind him rustle The thickets together, The grass rises again, The desert conceals him.

The melody and rhythm that interpreted the words were of a grandiose gloominess, like a song of shades pursued in the night, across the sea. Daniel recalled the hour he had written this music; he recalled the expression on Gertrude's face the time he played it for her. Eleanore was there, too, wearing a white dress, with a myrtle wreath in her hair. The tones dissolved the web of infinite time. "But aside, who is it?" came forth like a great, deep dirge. In the question there was something prophetically great. He covered his face and wept; he felt as if his heart would break.

The dead man and the doll were lying there, motionless, lifeless.

In half an hour the fire was under control. The two attic rooms had been burned out completely. Further than this no damage had been done.

Philippina had vanished without a trace. Since no one had seen her leave the house, the first theory was that she had been burned to death. But investigation proved this assumption to be incorrect. The police looked for her everywhere, but in vain; she was not to be found. A few people who had known her rather intimately insisted that she had been burned up so completely that there was nothing left of her but a little pile of black ashes.

However this may be, and whatever the truth may be, Philippina never again entered the house. No one ever again saw or heard a thing of her.



BUT ASIDE, WHO IS IT?

I

Late in the evening Benda came. He had been tolerably well informed of everything that had taken place. In the hall he met Agnes. Though generally quite monosyllabic, Agnes was now inclined to be extremely communicative, but she could merely confirm what he had already heard.

She went up to the top floor with him, and he stood there for a long while looking at the burnt rooms. There were two firemen on guard duty. "All of his music has been burnt up," said Agnes. Benda thought he would hardly be able to talk with his old friend again after this tragedy. But he at once felt ashamed of his timidity, and went down to see him.

It was again quiet throughout the entire house.

Daniel had lighted a candle in the living room. Finding it too dark with only one candle, he lighted another.

He paced back and forth. The room seemed too small for him: he opened the door leading into Dorothea's room, and walked back and forth through it too. On entering the dark room, his lips would move; he would murmur something. When he returned to the lighted room, he would stand for a second or two and stare at the candles.

His features seemed to show traces of human suffering such as no man had borne before; it could hardly have been greater. He did not seem to notice Benda when he came in.

"Everything gone? Everything destroyed?" asked Benda, after he had watched Daniel walk back and forth for nearly a quarter of an hour.

"One grave after the other," murmured Daniel, in a voice that no longer seemed to be his own. He raised his head as if surprised at the sound of what he himself had said. He felt that a stranger had come into the room without letting himself be heard.

"And the last work, the great work of which you told me, the fruit of so many years, has it also been destroyed?" asked Benda.

"Everything," replied Daniel distractedly, "everything I have created in the way of music from the time I first had reason to believe in myself. The sonatas, the songs, the quartette, the psalm, the 'Harzreise,' 'Wanderers Sturmlied,' and the symphony, everything down to the last page and the last note."

Yes, there was a stranger there; you could hear him laughing quietly to himself. "Why do you laugh?" asked Daniel sternly, and adjusted his glasses.

Benda, terrified, said: "I did not laugh."

"The grass rises again, the desert conceals him," said the stranger. He wore an old-fashioned suit, a droll sort of cap, and Hessian boots. "I ought to know him," thought Daniel to himself, and began to meditate with cloudy mind.

"This is like murder, unheard-of murder," cried Benda's soul; "how can he bear it? What will he do?"

"What is there to do?" asked Daniel, expressing Benda's silent thought in audible words, and looking askew, as he walked back and forth, at the stranger who went slowly through the room over to the window in the corner. "What can human fancy find reasonable or possible after all that has happened? Nothing! Merely pine away; pine away in insanity."

"Oho," said the stranger, "that is a trifle strong."

"If he would only keep quiet," thought Daniel, tortured. "I presume you know what has happened with the woman whom I called my wife," he continued. "That I threw myself away on this vain, soulless spirit of a mirror is irrelevant. Greater men than I have walked into such nets and become entangled, ensnared. I have never cherished the delusion that I was immune to all the mockery of this earth. I believed, however, that I could scent out truth and falsehood, and differentiate the one from the other, just as the hand can tell by the feel the wet from the dry. But the connection of the one with the other, and the horrible necessity of this connection, I do not understand."

"You have been served just right," remarked the intruder with the Hessian boots. He had sat down on a chair in the corner, and looked quite friendly.

"Why?" roared Daniel, stopping.

Benda, astounded, rose to his feet. "Speak out, Daniel," he said affectionately, "unburden your soul!"

"If I only could, Friedrich, if I only could! If my tongue would only move! Or if there were some one who felt with me and could speak for me!"

"Try it; the first word is often like a spark and starts a flame."

Daniel was silent. The intruder said deliberatively: "That goes deep down to the recesses of the heart and up high to the things that are immortal."

Daniel looked over at him sharply, and saw that it was the Goose Man.

II

All effort to get Daniel to talk was in vain. Along toward midnight, Benda took leave of him. Agnes unlocked the door for him; he said to her: "Look after him; he has no one else now."

Daniel lay on the sofa with his hands crossed behind his head, and stared at the ceiling. His eyes were hot; at times he trembled and shook.

"It isn't very sociable here," said the Goose Man, "the air is full of tobacco smoke, and there is a draft coming in from that dark room."

Daniel got up, closed the door, and lay down again.

The metallic exterior of the Goose Man seemed to become flexible, somewhat as when a frozen body thaws out. "You have gone through a great deal," he continued thoughtfully. "That any one who wishes to create must also experience is clear. Experience is his mother's milk, his realm of roots; it is where the saps flow together, from which his forms and figures are developed. But there is experience and experience, and between the two there is a world of difference."

"Superfluous profundity," murmured Daniel, plainly annoyed. "To live is to have experience." He took council with himself in the attempt to devise a means by which he might get rid of the importunate chatterer.

The Goose Man again struck up his gentle laugh. He replied: "Many live, and yet do not live; suffer, and yet do not suffer. In what does guilt lie? What does it consist of? In not feeling; in not doing. The first thing for some men to do is to eradicate completely the false notions they have of what constitutes greatness. For what is greatness after all? It is nothing in the world but the fulfilment of an unending circle of petty duties, small obligations."

"There is a fundamental difference between the creator and all other men," remarked Daniel, at once excited and troubled by the conversation and the turn it was taking.

"Do you appeal to, depend on, refer to music in this present case?" asked the Goose Man, his good-natured look becoming more or less disdainful.

"In music every creation is more closely related to an unconditional exterior than is true of anything else that man gives to man," answered Daniel. "The musical genius stands nearer God than any other genius."

The Goose Man nodded. "But his fall begins one step from God's throne, and is a high and deep one. Do you know what you are? And do you really know what you are not?"

Daniel pressed his hand to his heart: "Have you ever known me to fight for evanescent laurels? Have I ever tried to feed the human race, which is a race of minors, on surrogates? Have I ever imitated the flights of Heaven with St. Vitus dance, confusing the one with the other? Have I not always acted in accord with the best, the inmost knowledge I had, and in obedience to my conscience? Was I ever a liar?"

"No, no, no!" cried the Goose Man, by way of appeasing Daniel's unrest. He took off his cap, and laid it on his knee. "You were always sincere. There can be no doubt about it, your heart was always in your profession. All life has streamed into your soul, and you have lived in the ivory tower. Your soul was well protected, well protected from the very beginning. It was in a position similar to that created by a swimmer who rubs his body with grease before plunging into the water. You have suffered; the poison of the Nessus shirt you have worn has burned your skin, and the pain you have thereby suffered has been transformed into sweet sounds. So they all are, the creators, invulnerable and inaccessible. That is the way you picture them to yourself. Is it not true? Monsters who take up the cross of the world, and yet, grief-laden though they be, grow beyond their own fate. Such is your lot; and so do you look to-day in your forty-second year."

Daniel was not prepared for this tone of bitterness; he turned his face to the corner where the Goose Man was sitting. "I do not understand you," he said slowly. The pitiable crying of little Gottfried could be heard from the room opening out on the court, and then Agnes's quieting lullaby.

"If you only had not lived in the ivory tower!" cried the Goose Man. "If you only had been more sensitive and not so well protected! If you had only lived, lived, lived, really and truly, and near to life, like a naked man in a thicket of thorns! Life would have got the best of you, but your love would have been real, the hate you have experienced real, your misfortunes real, the lies, ridicule, and betrayal all real, and the shadows of those who have died from you would have taken on reality. And the poison of the Nessus shirt would not merely have burned your skin; it would have penetrated to your very blood, it would have found its way to the deepest, most secret recesses of your heart. Your work would have been carried on and out, not in a struggle against your darkness and your limited torments of soul, a slave before men and unblessed of God. Eliminate from your mind now, forever and completely, the delusion that you have borne the sufferings of the world! You have merely borne your own sufferings, loving-loveless, altruistic-egoist, monster, man without a country that you are!"

"Who are you? What are you trying to say?" asked Daniel, automatically, falteringly, with pale lips.

"Oh, don't you see who I am? I am the Goose Man," came the reply, spoken with a loyal and devoted bow. "The Goose Man, lonesome there behind the iron fence, lonesome there on the water at the fountain, and yet situated in the middle of the Market. An insignificant being, tangible and intelligible to every one who passes by, though a certain degree of monumentality has been ascribed to me in all these years. But I pay no attention to this ascription of greatness; I laugh at it. I give the Market, where the people come and haggle over the price of potatoes and apples, a certain degree of dignity. That is all. They see me as I stand there, always upright, under the open sky; and despite my distinguished position, they have all come to look upon me as a cousin. For a time they gave me a nickname: they called me by your name. But they had no right to do this; none at all, it seems to me. I have looked out for my geese; no one can say a thing against me."

The Goose Man laughed a quiet, inoffensive laugh; and when Daniel turned his face to the corner, the chair was empty, the strange guest had vanished.

III

But he came back. And when Daniel's mind and body were both completely broken down and he was obliged to remain in bed, his visits became regular. He sat next to Benda, for Benda had taken to calling on Daniel now every day and staying with him until late at night. But Daniel grew quieter and quieter. Sometimes he would make no reply at all to Benda's remarks or questions.

The Goose Man came in behind Dr. Dingolfinger and stood on tiptoes, as curious as curious could be, and looked over his arm when he wrote out his prescriptions. The Goose Man was a little fellow: he hardly reached up to the doctor's hips.

He hopped around Agnes when she cooked the soup and expressed his sympathy for her; she looked so pale. Though only thirteen years old, there was the worried look of a mature woman in her face; she would cast her eyes around the room as if trying to catch a glance of human love in the eyes of another person; her looks were timid and stealthy. "Some one should be caring for her too," said the Goose Man, shaking his head, "some one should be making a good, warm soup for her."

Though it would be unfair to say that the Goose Man was offensively concerned, he seemed to be interested in everything that was going on in the house. When the officials of the fire department came to cross-question Daniel about the fire, he became angry and gruff, and did not wish to let them in. "Give the poor man some rest, some peace, after all these years of suffering," he implored, "give him time to collect himself and to meditate on what has taken place." And in fact the members of the fire department left as soon as possible; they did not stay long.

The Goose Man was always in a cheerful humour, always ready for a good joke. At times he would whistle softly, and smooth out the wrinkles in his doublet. There was a certain amount of rustic shyness about him, but his affability, his good manners, and his child-like cheerfulness removed any unpleasant impression this rusticity might otherwise have made. He generally spoke the dialect of Nuremberg, though when with Daniel he never spoke anything but the most correct and chosen High German. His natural, acquired culture and the wealth of his vocabulary were really amazing.

Ten times a day at least he would scamper into the room where little Gottfried was sleeping and express his admiration for the pretty child. "How you are to be envied to have such a living creature crawling and sprawling around in your home!" he said to Daniel. And in course of time Daniel actually came to have a new affection for the child.

As soon as the Goose Man felt perfectly at home in Daniel's house, he took to bringing his two geese along with him. He would place them very circumspectly in a corner of the room. One evening he was sitting playing with them, when the bell rang. Andreas Doederlein stormed in, and demanded that some one tell him where his daughter was.

"Upon my word and honour! An old acquaintance of mine!" said the Goose Man, laughing and blinking. "I see him nowadays in the cafe much more frequently than is good for his health."

"I must urgently request you to control yourself," said Benda, turning to Andreas Doederlein, and pointed to the bed in which Daniel was lying.

"My daughter is not a bad woman. Let people overburdened with credulity believe that she is bad," cried Doederlein, with the expression and in the tone and gesture of the royal Lear, and shook his Olympian locks. "The fact is that violence has been practised on her; she has been driven into ruin! Men have stolen the sweet love of my dearly beloved daughter through the use of vile tricks and artifices. Where is she, the unfortunate, betrayed child? With what is she clothing her nakedness, and how is she finding food and shelter—shelter in a world of wicked men?"

A strange thing happened: the Goose Man took the gigantic arm of the Olympian, put his mouth to his beefy ear, and, with a sad and reproachful look on his face, whispered something to him. Doederlein turned red and then pale, looked down at the floor, and went away with heavy, rumbling step but silent lips. The Goose Man folded his arms across his breast, and looked at Doederlein thoughtfully.

"He is said to have taken to drinking," remarked Benda, "is said to be living a wild, dissipated life. It seems incredible to me. The Doederleins are generally content to stroll in lust along the banks of the slimy sea of vice and let other people fall in. The Doederleins are born in false ermine, and they die in false ermine."

"And yet he is a human being," said the Goose Man, so that only Daniel could hear him.

Daniel sighed.

IV

It was late at night. Daniel could not sleep. The Goose Man crouched at his feet on the edge of the bed, and looked at him as one looks at a dear brother who is suffering intense pain.

"I cannot deny that it is difficult for you to continue your life," said the Goose Man, trying to subdue his bright voice. "When we sum up your situation, we see day following day, night following night, and nothing happening that can be a cause for rejoicing. Everything has been cut off; the threads have all been broken; the foundation on which you built has been completely annihilated. You are like the mother of many children who loses them all, all of them, on a single day by one terrible stroke. The labour of years remains unrewarded; your work has been in vain; in vain the blood your heart has poured out, the deprivations you have submitted to; your whole past is like a bad, disordered dream. Oh, I understand full well; I appreciate your situation. It seems hard, very hard, to go on and not to despair."

Daniel covered his face with his hands and moaned.

"Have you ever asked yourself how the hand of murder came to strike you? Ah, this Philippina! This daughter of Jason Philip! I am almost four hundred years old, but such a person I have never seen or known. But look back over your past! Do it just once! Open your eyes; they are pure now and capable of beholding. Have you not suffered the Devil to live by your side, to take part in your life? And were you not at the same time impatient with the angels who spread their wings about you as my geese spread theirs about me? The Devil has grown fat from you. The vampire has battened on you, has fed on your blood. All this comes about when one is unwilling to give, when one merely takes and takes and takes. That makes the Devil fat; the vampire becomes greedier with each passing sun. Ah, so many good genii have fled from you! Many you have frightened away, you, bewitched, you, enchanted! Well, what now? What next? Hell has claimed its full booty; Heaven can now open again to your new-born heart."

"There is no Heaven," groaned Daniel, "there is nothing but blackness and darkness."

"You still breathe, your heart is still beating, you still have five fingers on each hand," replied the Goose Man quietly. "He who has paid his debts is a free man: you have paid yours."

"I am my own debt, my own guilt. If I continue to live, I will sin again. Were I to live over the past, back into the past, I would contract the same debts."

"But there is such a thing as a transformation, and through it one receives absolution. Turn away from your phantom and become a human being—and then you can become a creator. If you once become human, really human, it may be that you will not need the work, symphony or whatever else you choose to call it. It may be that power and glory will radiate from you yourself. For are not all works merely the round-about ways, the detours of the man himself, merely man's imperfect attempts to reveal himself? Did you not love a mask of plaster more than the countenances that shone upon you, the faces that wept about you? Did you not allow another mask, a thing of the mirror, to get control over you, and so to besmirch your soul and strike your spirit with paralysis? How can a man be a creator if he deceives, stunts, and abbreviates the humanity that is in him? It is not a question of ability, Daniel Nothafft, it is a question of being, living, being."

Daniel tossed his head back and forth on his pillow, writhing in agony. "Stop!" he gulped, "stop, stop!"

The Goose Man bent over him, and crouched up nearer to his body like an animal trying to get warm. "Come out of the convulsion," something cried and exhorted within him, "break your chains! Your music can give men nothing so long as you yourself are held captive. Feel their distress! Have pity on their unplumbed loneliness! Behold mankind! Behold it!"

"There is so much," replied Daniel in extreme torture, "a hundred thousand faces bewilder me, a hundred thousand pictures hem me in. I cannot differentiate; I must flee, flee!"

There was something inimitably tender, reassuring, and resigned in what the Goose Man then said: "I speak to you as Christ: Rise and walk! Rise and go in peace, Daniel! Go with me to my place. Be me for just one day, from morning to evening, and I will be you."

Daniel got up, and before he was conscious of what he was doing, he had put on his clothes and was out on the street with the Goose Man. They crossed the market place, and Daniel, in a crepuscular state of mind, climbed up, with the help of the Goose Man, and took his place on the base of the fountain behind the iron railing. The two geese he took under his arms. He stood perfectly still, rigid, just like the Goose Man, and waited in anticipation of the things that were to come.

V

But nothing extraordinary happened. Everything that took place was quite prosaic and obviously a matter of custom.

The sun rose, and the market women took the cords and covers from their baskets. Fresh cherries, young pears, and winter apples shone in all their brilliancy of colour and lent variety to the drab square. Sparrows picked in the straw that lay on the street. The sun rose higher; its early red gave way to a midday blue. Clouds drifted over the roof of the church. The women gossiped. Wagons rattled by, errand boys called to each other, curtains were drawn from the windows, and men and women looked out to see what the weather was going to be like. There were sleepy faces and anxious faces, good faces and bad faces, young and old.

Maids and humbler housewives came to make their purchases. They examined the fruit with seasoned care and experienced hand, and bargained for lower prices. The peasant women praised what they had, and if their praise was ineffectual, they became abusive. Once a sale had been made, they would take their balances, put the weights in one pan and the fruit in another, and never cease praising what they were selling until they had the money safe in their pockets. Then they would count over the coins they had received, and looked at them as if to say: "It is fine to earn money!"

But those who paid out the money bore the mien of painful care and solicitude. They seemed to be counting it all up in their heads; to be taking lessons in mental arithmetic. They would think over how much it were wise or permissible for them to spend. The thing that impressed Daniel most of all, and the longer he stood there the clearer it became to him, was this: Each purchaser went right up to the very edge of the territory staked out for her, so to speak, by some mysterious master. This they felt was correct, certain though they were that to have gone beyond the allotted limit would have brought swift and irremediable ruin. The money was paid out with such studied caution, and taken in with such a sense of victory! There was something touching about it all. This daily life of these small people seemed so strange, so very strange, and at the same time so in accord with established order: it seemed indeed to be a practical visualisation of the sanctity of the law.

In all the transactions due respect was paid to the formalities of life, and nothing was veiled. There was fulness, but no confusion; many words, but no misunderstanding. There were the wares and there were the coins. The scales showed how much was being given and how much taken. The fruit wandered from basket to basket, and human arms carried it home. Each bought as much as could be paid for; there was no thought of going beyond one's means.

The clock in the tower struck on the hour, and the shadows moved in a circle about the objects on the square. So it was to-day; and so it had been four hundred years ago.

Four hundred years ago the houses stood there just as they stood to-day, and people, men and women, looked out of the windows, some with kindly, some with embittered faces.

Is that not Theresa Schimmelweis creeping around the corner? How old, decrepit, and bent with years! Her hair is stone grey, her face is like lime. She is poorly dressed; she does not notice the people she meets. She sees nothing but the full baskets of fruit; for them she has a greedy eye. And she looks at Daniel behind the iron fence with an expression of painful astonishment.

And is that not Frau Hadebusch hobbling along over there! Though her face is that of a crafty criminal, in her eyes there is a panicky, terrified look. She has no support other than the ground beneath her feet; she is a poor, lost soul.

There comes Alfons Diruf, who retired years ago. He has become stout and gloomy. He is out for his morning walk along the city moat. There goes the actor, Edmund Hahn, seeking whom he may devour. Disease and lust are writ large across his jaded face. There is the sculptor, Schwalbe. He is secretly buying a few apples to take home to roast, for otherwise he has nothing warm to eat. And there is Herr Carovius, ambling along. He looks like a wandering spirit, dejected and exhausted.

Beggars pass by, and so do the rich. There are respected people who are greeted by those who see them; there are outcasts who are shunned. There are those who are happy and those who are weighed down with grief. Some hasten and some hesitate. Some seem to hold fast to their lives as a lover might hold fast to his fiancee; others will die that same day. One has a child by the hand, another a woman by the arm. Some drag crimes in their hearts, others walk upright, free, happy to face the world. One is being summoned to court as a witness, the other is on his way to the doctor. One is fleeing from domestic discord, another is rejoicing over some great good fortune. There is the man who has lost his purse and the man who is reading a serious letter. One is on his way to church to pray, another to the cafe to drown his sorrows. One is radiant with joy over the business outlook, another is crushed with poverty. A beautiful girl has on her best dress; a cripple lies in the gateway. There is a boy who sings a song, and a matron whose eyes are red with weeping. The baker carries his bread by, the cobbler his boots. Soldiers are going to the barracks, workmen are returning from the factory.

Daniel feels that none of them are strangers to him. He sees himself in each of them. He is nearer to them while standing on his elevated position behind the iron railing than he was when he walked by them on the street. The jet of water that spurts from him is like fate: it flows and collects in the basin. Eternal wisdom, he feels, is streaming up to him from the fountain below; each hour becomes a century. However men may be constituted, he is seized with a supernatural feeling when he looks into their eyes. In all of their eyes there is the same fire, the same anxiety and the same prayer; the same loneliness, the same life, the same death. In all of them he sees the soul of God.

He himself no longer feels his loneliness; he feels that he has been distributed among men. His hate has gone, dispelled like so much smoke. The tones he hears now come rushing up from the great fountain; and this fountain is fed from the blood of all those he sees on the market place. Water is something different now: "It washes clean man's very soul, and makes it like an angel, whole."

Noon came, and then evening: a day of creation. And when evening came, a mist settled over the city, and Daniel came down from his high place at the fountain, set the geese carefully to one side, and went home. He arrived at the vestibule; he stood in the door of the room looking out on the court. His eyes beheld a wonderful sight.

The Goose Man was sitting playing with Agnes and little Gottfried. He had cut silhouettes from bright coloured paper and made them stand up on the table by bending back the edge of the paper. There he sat, pushing these figures into each other, and making such droll remarks that Agnes, who had never in her life really laughed, laughed now with all her heart, and like the child that she in truth still was.

Little Gottfried could only prattle and clap his hands. The Goose Man had placed him on the table. Whenever he made a false or awkward move, the Goose Man would set him right. He seemed to be especially skilled at handling and amusing children.

When Daniel came in, the Goose Man got up and went over to him, greeted him, and said in a kindly, confidential tone: "Are you back so soon? We have had such a nice time!"

In the room, however, there was the same haze that had settled down over the city when Daniel left the fountain. Agnes and Gottfried were seized with a terrible fear. The boy began to cry; Agnes threw her arms around him and cried too.

Daniel went up to them, and said: "Don't cry! I'm with you. You don't need to cry any more!"

He sat down on the same seat on which the Goose Man had been sitting, looked at the tiny paper figures, and, smiling, continued the game the Goose Man had been playing with them.

Gottfried became quiet and Agnes happy.

"Good-night!" cried the Goose Man, "now I am again myself, and you are you."

He nodded kindly and disappeared.

VI

That same evening six of Daniel's pupils came in. They had heard that he had been removed from his position at the conservatory.

It was not a mere rumour. Andreas Doederlein had had him discharged. He was also relieved of his post as organist at St. AEgydius's. The scandal with which he had been associated, and which was by this time known to the entire city, had turned the church authorities against him.

The six pupils came into his room where he was playing with his children. One of them, who had been chosen as their spokesman, told him that they had made up their minds not to leave him; they were anxious to have him continue the instruction he had been giving them.

They were clever, vivacious young chaps. In their eyes was an enthusiasm that had not yet been dimmed either by cowardice or conceit.

"I am not going to remain in the city," said Daniel. "I am planning to return to my native Eschenbach."

The pupils looked at each other. Thereupon the speaker remarked: "We want to go with you." They all nodded.

Daniel got up and shook hands with each one of them.

Two days later, Daniel's furniture and household belongings had all been packed. Benda came to say good-bye: his work, his great duty was calling him.

At first Benda could hardly realise that Daniel was yet to live an active life; that there was still a whole life in him; that his life was not merely the debris of human existence, the ruins of a heart. But it was true.

There was about Daniel the expression, the bearing of a man who had been liberated, unchained. No one could help but notice it. Though more reticent and laconic than in former days, his eyes had taken on a new splendour, a renewed brilliancy and clarity; they were at once serious and cheerful. His mood had become milder, his face more peaceful.

The friends shook hands. Benda then left the room slowly, went down the steps slowly, and once out on the street he walked along slowly: he felt so small, so strangely unimportant.

VII

Daniel returned to Eschenbach, and moved into the house of his parents. His pupils took rooms with the residents of the village.

He was regarded by the natives as a peculiar individual. They smiled when they spoke of him, or when they saw him passing through the streets absorbed in his own thoughts. But it was not a malicious smile. If there was the faintest tinge of ridicule in it at first, it soon gave way to a vague feeling of pride.

He gained a mysterious influence over people with whom he came in contact; many sought his advice when in trouble. His pupils especially adored him. He had the gift of holding their attention, of carrying them along. The means he employed were the very simplest: his splendid, cheerful personality, the harmony between what he said and what he did, his earnestness, his humanness, his resignation to the cause that lay close to his heart, and his own belief in this cause—those were the means through which and by which he gained a mysterious influence over those with whom he came in touch.

He became a famous teacher; the number of pupils who wished to study under him increased from year to year. But he admitted very few of them to his classes. He took only the best; and the certainty with which he made his selections and differentiated was wellnigh infallible.

No inducements of any kind could persuade him to leave the isolated place where he had elected to live.

He was almost always in a good humour; he was never distracted; and the preciseness and sharpness with which he observed whatever took place was remarkable. The one thing that could throw him into a rage was to see some one abuse a dumb beast. Once he got into trouble with a teamster who was beating his skinny old jade in order to make it pull a load that was far in excess of its strength. The boys on the street made fun of him; the people laughed with considerable satisfaction, and said: "Ah, the professor: he's a bit off."

Agnes kept house for him; she was most faithful in looking out for his wants. When he would leave the house, she would bring him his hat and walking stick. Every evening before she went to sleep, he would come in to her and kiss her on the forehead. It was rare that they spoke with each other, but there was a secret agreement, a peaceful harmony, between them.

Gottfried grew up to be a strong, healthy boy. He had Daniel's physique and Eleanore's eyes. Yes, they were the eyes with that blue fire; and they had Eleanore's elfin-like chastity and her hatred of all that is false and simulated. Daniel saw in this a freak of nature of the profoundest significance. All the laws of blood seemed unsubstantial and shadowy. His feelings often wandered between gratitude and astonishment.

Of Dorothea he heard one day that she was making her living as a violinist in a woman's orchestra. He made some inquiries and traced her as far as Berlin. There he lost her. A few years later he was told that she had become the mistress of a wealthy country gentleman in Bohemia, and was driving about in an automobile on the Riviera.

He was also informed of the death of Herr Carovius. His last hours were said to have been very hard: he had kept crying out, "My flute, give me my flute!"

VIII

In August, 1909, Daniel's pupils celebrated the fiftieth birthday of their master. They made him a great number of presents, and gave him a dinner in the inn at the Sign of the Ox.

One of his pupils, an extremely handsome young fellow for whose future Daniel had the highest of hopes, presented him with a huge bouquet of orange lilies, wild natives of the woods around Eschenbach. He had gathered them himself, and arranged them in a costly vase.

The menu at the dinner was quite frugal; the wine was Franconian country wine. During the dinner, Daniel rose, took his glass in his hand, and, with a far-away look in his eyes, said: "I drink to the health and happiness of a creature who is a stranger to all of you. She grew up here in Eschenbach. Many years ago she vanished in a most mysterious way. But I know that she is alive and happy at this hour."

His pupils all raised their glasses. They looked at him, and were deeply moved by the strength and clarity of his features.

After the dinner he and his pupils went to the old church. He had both of the large doors opened so that the bright light of day might pour in unimpeded. Up in the lofty vaults of the nave, where all had been dark but a moment ago, there was now a milky clearness and cheerfulness.

He went to the organ and began to play. Some men and women who chanced to be passing by came in and sat down on the benches with the boys. Then a group of children entered. They tripped timidly through the open doors, stopped, looked around, and opened their eyes as wide as children can. Other people came in; for the tones of the organ had penetrated the humble homes. They looked up at the organ silently and seriously; for its exalted melodies had, without their being prepared for it, carried them away from their everyday existence, and lifted them up above its abject lowliness.

The tones grew louder and louder, until they sounded like the prayer of a heart overflowing with feeling. As the close of the great hymn drew on, a little girl was heard weeping from among the uninvited auditors.

It was Agnes who wept. Had life been fully awakened in her? Was love calling her out into the unknown? Was the life of her mother being repeated in her?

Children grow up and are seized by their fate.

Toward evening, Daniel took a walk with his nine pupils out over the meadow. They went quite far. The last song of the birds had died out, the glow of the sun had turned pale.

The beautiful youth, then walking by Daniel's side, said: "And the work, Master?"

Daniel merely smiled; his eye roamed over the landscape.

The landscape shows many shades of green. Around the weirs the grass is higher, so high at times that one can see nothing of the geese but their beaks. Were it not for their cackling, one might take these beaks for strangely mobile flowers.

THE END



[Transcriber's Note: The table below lists all corrections applied to the original text.

p. 007: [normalized] set up as a book-seller -> bookseller p. 008: the lovely curves of the birdges -> bridges p. 011: [normalized] he slipt into the Festival Playhouse -> slipped p. 011: [normalized] acquaintance of Andreas Doeberlein -> Doederlein p. 011: [normalized] Doeberlein seemed not disinclined -> Doederlein p. 014: [normalized] little, eight-year old daughter -> eight-year-old p. 017: [normalized] Theresa said to the working-man -> workingman p. 018: fiercely red pamphets spread out -> pamphlets p. 023: [normalized] a room of the brushmaker Hadebusch -> brush-maker p. 024: Frau Hadesbusch wailed -> Hadebusch p. 024: [normalized] The old brushmaker poked his head -> brush-maker p. 046: status of the artistocracy -> aristocracy p. 047: [normalized] he indulged in eaves-dropping -> eavesdropping p. 048: [normalized] as a fourteen-year old girl -> fourteen-year-old p. 054: no sooner had be seen her -> he p. 057: seemed to be similiarly situated -> similarly p. 065: [normalized] the seventeen-year old boy -> seventeen-year-old p. 067: flatter the leader and politican -> politician p. 067: [normalized] socialist book-keeper -> bookkeeper p. 067: Her shrieks called Herr Franke -> Francke p. 084: [missing period] took the artist's part. p. 094: [normalized] she was in her nightgown -> night-gown p. 095: clasped Eleanor about the hips -> Eleanore p. 095: stepped back from her, terror stricken -> terror-stricken p. 101: The venemous and eloquent hatred -> venomous p. 105: [normalized] fell head-long to the floor -> headlong p. 107: [added comma] and if you want to, why you can come -> why, you p. 121: meant at the time by "having a child," -> 'having a child,' p. 122: [added comma] Why the arithmetic of it -> Why, the p. 123: [normalized] fixed on a ten-year old girl -> ten-year-old p. 124: [normalized] right under my bed-room -> bedroom p. 125: crystallised by artifical means -> artificial p. 127: [normalized] voice that the passers-by simpered -> passersby p. 130: rather die, they said, then meet -> than meet p. 131: she could play the role of an emissary -> role p. 132: [normalized] Eschenbach at mid-day -> midday p. 133: [normalized] unusually large eye-brows -> eyebrows p. 136: their retinue was seedy looking indeed -> seedy-looking p. 136: dozen or so super-numaries -> super-numeraries p. 145: [normalized] pleasing, faraway look in her eyes -> far-away p. 153: [normalized] character of the book-seller -> bookseller p. 154: [normalized] with heartrending dignity -> heart-rending p. 162: [comma missing ink] "Where are you going, my dear friend?" p. 163: he liked to breathe the air that Eberhard dreamed -> breathed p. 169: [normalized] weatherbeaten by the storms -> weather-beaten p. 169: something childlike in his restlessness -> child-like p. 176: from the land of no-where -> nowhere p. 180: [normalized] this over-crowded room -> overcrowded p. 183: the words of the "Herzreise" -> "Harzreise" p. 183: voice of the painter Krapotkin -> Kropotkin p. 186: Gertrude was pealing potatoes -> peeling p. 191: but twenty pfennigs' worth of sweets -> buy p. 197: [added closing quotes] "I think he is. If not, I will get him." p. 202: light hearted and light footed -> light-hearted and light-footed p. 212: [normalized] appeared in the Phoenix -> Phoenix p. 215: [normalized] her well-nigh supernatural ability -> wellnigh p. 215: [normalized] a serious, far-a-way warning -> far-away p. 227: threw it at Frauelein Varini -> Fraeulein p. 253: [normalized] passersby and onlookers -> on-lookers p. 257: Eleanor's example was equally great -> Eleanore's p. 275: the greatest atraction for her -> attraction p. 297: potato pealings -> peelings p. 300: [normalized] just stepped out of a band-box -> bandbox p. 300: That old white bearded man -> white-bearded p. 301: [punctuation] interrupted Philippina with a giggle, -> giggle. p. 304: his nose was as flat as a pan-cake -> pancake p. 313: You probaby think I am an idiotic simpleton -> probably p. 317: [normalized] hiring out as a mid-wife -> midwife p. 320: [normalized] the sound of foot-steps -> footsteps p. 326: at most an inadquate light -> inadequate p. 327: rid himself completely of all entangements -> entanglements p. 331: That is the way our childer are -> children p. 333: Count Ulrich had asked for her hand -> Urlich p. 338: more and more strange and izarre -> bizarre p. 340: his shabby old yellow rain-coat -> raincoat p. 346: a vague, faraway idea of music -> far-away p. 358: passsionately absorbed in himself -> passionately p. 360: [normalized] and a long law-suit -> lawsuit p. 360: establishment in the Plobenhaf Street -> Plobenhof p. 364: with some hesistation -> hesitation p. 378: [normalized] A neighbour, the green grocer -> green-grocer p. 397: unsually attentive expression -> unusually p. 411: [normalized] the next day to a school-mate -> schoolmate p. 424: [punctuation] sleep longer." Dorothea answered -> longer," p. 426: [added period] concerned themselves about him in the slightest. p. 441: [normalized] try to brow-beat me -> browbeat p. 444: bent dawn, stretched out her arm -> down p. 461: The Doederlins are born in false ermine -> Doederleins p. 464: [added period] going beyond one's means. p. 466: Little Gootfried could only prattle -> Gottfried ]

THE END