The Goose Man · Jakob Wassermann
Chapter 5
Chapter 191 of 219 · 2 min read
“I am related to Daniel, and we must address each other by the familiar Du,” said Philippina to Dorothea. Daniel’s wife agreed.
Every morning when Dorothea came into the kitchen Philippina would say: “Well, what did you dream?”
“I dreamt I was at the station and it was wartime, and some gipsies came along and carried me off,” said Dorothea on one occasion.
“Station means an unexpected visit; war means discord with various personalities; and gipsies mean that you are going to have to do with some flippant people.” All this Philippina rattled off in the High German of her secret code.
Philippina was also an adept in geomancy. Dorothea would often sit by her side, and ask her whether this fellow or that fellow were in love with her, whether this girl loved that fellow and the other girl another, and so on through the whole table of local infatuations. Philippina would make a number of dots on a sheet of paper, fill in the numbers, hold the list up to the light, and divulge the answer of the oracle.
In a very short while the two were one heart, one soul. Dorothea could always count on Philippina’s laughter of approval when she fell into one of her moods of excessive friskiness. And if Agnes failed to show the proper amount of interest, Philippina would poke her in the ribs and exclaim: “You little rascallion, has the cat got your tongue?”
Agnes would then sneak off in mournful silence to her school books, and sit for hours over the simplest kind of a problem in the whole arithmetic. Dorothea would occasionally bring her a piece of taffy. She would wrap it up, put it in her pocket, and give it the next day to a schoolmate from whose note book she had copied her sums in subtraction.
Herr Seelenfromm stopped Philippina on the street, and said to her: “Well, how are you getting along? How is the young wife making out?”
“Oi, oi, we’re living on the fat of the land, I say,” Philippina replied, stretching her mouth from ear to ear. “Chicken every day, cake too, wine always on hand, and one guest merely opens the door on another.”
“Nothafft must have made a pile of money,” remarked Herr Seelenfromm in amazement.
“Yes, he must. Nobody works at our house. The wife’s pocket-book at least is always crammed.”
The sky was blue, the sun was bright, spring had come.
