"The grass rises again, the desert conceals him," said the stranger. He
wore an old-fashioned suit, a droll sort of cap, and Hessian boots. "I
ought to know him," thought Daniel to himself, and began to meditate
with cloudy mind.
"This is like murder, unheard-of murder," cried Benda's soul; "how can
he bear it? What will he do?"
"What is there to do?" asked Daniel, expressing Benda's silent thought
in audible words, and looking askew, as he walked back and forth, at the
stranger who went slowly through the room over to the window in the
corner. "What can human fancy find reasonable or possible after all that
has happened? Nothing! Merely pine away; pine away in insanity."
"Oho," said the stranger, "that is a trifle strong."
"If he would only keep quiet," thought Daniel, tortured. "I presume you
know what has happened with the woman whom I called my wife," he
continued. "That I threw myself away on this vain, soulless spirit of a
mirror is irrelevant. Greater men than I have walked into such nets and
become entangled, ensnared. I have never cherished the delusion that I
was immune to all the mockery of this earth. I believed, however, that I
could scent out truth and falsehood, and differentiate the one from the
other, just as the hand can tell by the feel the wet from the dry. But
the connection of the one with the other, and the horrible necessity of
this connection, I do not understand."
"You have been served just right," remarked the intruder with the
Hessian boots. He had sat down on a chair in the corner, and looked
quite friendly.
"Why?" roared Daniel, stopping.
Benda, astounded, rose to his feet. "Speak out, Daniel," he said
affectionately, "unburden your soul!"
"If I only could, Friedrich, if I only could! If my tongue would only
move! Or if there were some one who felt with me and could speak for
me!"
"Try it; the first word is often like a spark and starts a flame."
Daniel was silent. The intruder said deliberatively: "That goes deep
down to the recesses of the heart and up high to the things that are
immortal."
Daniel looked over at him sharply, and saw that it was the Goose Man.