Chapter 5

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 fiancée; 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 café 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.