“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 Döderlein stormed in, and demanded that some one tell him where his daughter was.