Anna was very unjust to me, but I ascribed it to her excited feelings. She made amends to me that very night, by placing before me for supper the goose she had bought for the next day's dinner. Ah, if women only knew the effect of such a thing upon a man's spirits! The very smell was enough to dispel anger and vexation. If a young girl were to come to me for counsel before she was married, if she were to ask me how she could chain her husband to her, how she could make him love her all the days of his life, I should say to her, "Look after his stomach, my child. Make him nice stews and savory dishes. When he cuts into the beef with the knife you have sharpened for him, let him behold the gravy running out of it. It softens the heart. And when you give him a roast goose, be sure that you give him plenty of stuffing with it." But no one could roast a goose like old Anna. No one, no one! Upon her tombstone ought to have been cut the words, "Here lieth a woman who could roast a goose to perfection, and who made the finest stews in the world."
When Anna placed that goose before me I gave utterance to a long, deep sigh of satisfaction, and I looked at her with a smile in my eyes. Her face lighted up in an instant. You should have seen it; it was like the sun breaking out. Did I not know in my inmost soul that she had been suffering because she believed she had done me an injustice? And in an instant everything was cleared up through the savory steam--more eloquent than the finest words that rose from the hot roast goose.
But there is never joy without sorrow. Gideon Wolf came into the room just as I put the knife into the breast.
"A hot roast goose!" he cried, gleefully. "If I like one thing better than another it is a hot roast goose for supper."
And he drew his chair close to the table, and held out a plate.
I could not take my knife out of the breast, the fattest slices of which I intended for my own eating, and help him to the long joint of the leg. Sadly I laid the fat slices on his plate, and when he said, "Don't trouble about the stuffing, Master Fink I'll help myself;" I submitted without a word, but in silent wrath. He devoured the best part of that goose, and nearly the whole of the stuffing. What could be expected of such a gourmand? As for Anna, she went out of the room in such a state of vexation that I am sure she could not have got a wink of sleep that night.
[CHAPTER VI.]
PRETZEL THE MISER, WITH THE EVIL EYE.
Of Anna's revelations, those which troubled me most were that relating to Pretzel the miser, and that relating to Katrine Loebeg. Of the intimacy which she had discovered, by means of a hole in the wall, between the Devil and Gideon Wolf I soon disposed. The world abounds in men who feed on delusions, and who find their greatest comfort therein. The majority of these men are beings who hunger after what is not within their reach, or who are envious of their neighbors. Gideon Wolf, hungering for wealth, and seeing no practical road to its swift attainment, flew to his imagination for the realization of his desire. He played cards in the solitude of his room with a Shadow, and won of it or lost to it great sums of money. There is a certain distinction, and also a certain comfort, in this delusion. Imaginary millions are involved in the turning up of a card, and the high play affords a triumph when a fortune is won, and a scarcely less enjoyable despair when it is lost. So much for Gideon Wolf's folly in playing cards with the Devil. That I did not believe in the personality of the Evil One was, in my old Anna's eyes, a terrible sin. She herself had the firmest belief that he walked the earth, a solid body, horns, hoofs, tail, and all complete. No, the Devil did not trouble me, but Pretzel the miser did.
This Pretzel was, in my opinion, the most abominable man in the town. He was a miser, and a moneylender at exorbitant interest. One hundred, two hundred, even four hundred per cent., did not satisfy him; he was never satisfied till he had extracted the last copper from the unhappy people who went to him for assistance. A little, thin, dried-up old man, with a joyless laugh. Out of his whole body I do not believe you could have squeezed a teaspoonful of blood. The number of people he had ruined! I could not count them. And all done under the shadow of the law. Yes, he was always, always right, and his victims always, always wrong. The judges and the lawyers all declared so--not because they wished to favor him, but because they were compelled to go by the letter of the law. "I want nothing more than my rights," he would say; "look at my bond." And there was never a flaw in it, never the smallest crevice that a poor wretch could creep through to escape from his clutches. All, gracious heaven! A heartless money-lender's bond. That it is necessary he should be upheld in it--that he should be allowed to prey, to blast, to ruin, to destroy! Is there no such thing as moral justice in this strangely constituted world? Public opinion. Yes, yes. But what do men like Pretzel care for public opinion? Could they not, if they pleased, buy up all the corn and the oil? If I had a son, never, never should be become a money-lender! I would sooner see him dead at my feet. "Look at my bond," says the money-lender; "ask my debtor if he denies his signature." "Take what you demand," says the judge. And helpless women and children stand by, wringing their hands and weeping tears of blood. The money-lender sees not, hears not. He takes what he demands, and when the Sabbath comes he kneels in church, and prays and humbles himself. It is a cheap way of buying himself off. Though if the truth were known, and if the workings of a man's soul could be brought into view, the heart and the mind of the ruthless schemer would be seen to be full of triumphant figures all the time his lips are moving with meaningless prayer.