“Upon my word and honour! An old acquaintance of mine!” said the Goose Man, laughing and blinking. “I see him nowadays in the café much more frequently than is good for his health.”
“I must urgently request you to control yourself,” said Benda, turning to Andreas Döderlein, 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 Döderlein, 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. Döderlein 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 Döderlein 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 Döderleins are generally content to stroll in lust along the banks of the slimy sea of vice and let other people fall in. The Döderleins 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.