THE GREEN DOOR

Rudolf Steiner was a true adventurer. Few were the evenings, when he did not
go out from his room in search of the unexpected. The most interesting thing in life
seemed to him to be what might lie just around the next corner. Sometimes his love
of adventure led him into strange paths.
One evening Rudolf was walking leisurely along a street in the older central
part of the city. Crowds of people hurrying home filled the sidewalks.
The young adventurer was rather good-looking. He wore his tie drawn
through a 'topaz ring instead of fastened with a stick-pin. By daylight he was a
salesman in a piano store.
During his walk a violent chattering of teeth in a glass case on the sidewalk
drew his attention to a dentist's sign high above the next door: A giant Negro,
strangely dressed in a red coat, yellow trousers and a military cap, was handing
cards to the passing people. This way of advertising was a common sight to
Rudolf. Usually he passed the Negro without taking any of the dentist's cards, but
to-night the Negro managed to give him one. Rudolf looked at it indifferently but
was surprised to see that, instead of the dentist's name, the words “The Green
Door" were written on it. He picked up a card that some passer-by had thrown
away. It had the dentist's name and address on it.
The adventurous piano salesman stopped at the corner of the street, turned
back and joined the crowd of people again. He passed the Negro a second time and
carelessly took the card that was handed him. Ten steps away he looked at it. In the
same handwriting that he saw on the first card the words “The Green Door” were
written on it.
Rudolf walked slowly back to the place where the giant Negro stood. This
time as he passed he received no card. Standing aside from the crowd, the young
man looked at the building in which he thought his adventure must lie. It was five
storeys high. A small restaurant occupied the basement. On the first floor there was
a millinery shop. The second floor was the dentist's. Above this there was a chaos
of dress-makers', musicians' and doctors' signs. Still higher up curtains and mill-
bottles on the window-sills told of domesticity.
After he had finished his survey Rudolf walked quickly up the stone steps into
the house. Ile went up two flights of steps and stopped at the top. The landing was
dimly lighted by two pale gas-jets. He looked towards the nearer light and saw a
green door. He stood hesitatingly a moment, then he walked straight to the green
door and knocked at it. The moments that passed before his k lock was answered,
were moments of true adventure. What might not be behind this green door!
danger, death,- love, disappointment…
A faint rustle was heard inside, and the door slowly opened. A girl not yet
twenty years old stood there, white-faced. She swayed weakly, groping for the
door with one hand. Rudolf caught her and laid her on a sofa that stood by the wall.
He closed the door and glanced around the room. Neat, but extreme poverty was
the story that he read.
The girl lay still as if in a faint. Rudolf began to fan her with his pat. This was
successful — for he struck her nose with the brim of his hat and she opened her
eyes. And then the young man knew that the frank grey eyes, the little pert nose
and the curly chestnut hair were the best reward of all his wonderful adventures.
But the face was very thin and pale.
The girl looked at him calmly, and then smiled.
"I fainted, didn't I?" she asked, weakly. "Well, who wouldn't? You try going
without anything to eat for three days and see!"
"Good God!" exclaimed Rudolf, jumping up. "Wait till I come back."
He ran out of the green door and down the stairs. In twenty minutes he was
back again with both arms full of various things from the grocery and the
restaurant. He put the things on the table—bread and butter, cakes, pies, pickles, a
roasted chicken, a bottle of milk and a bottle of hot tea.
"This is ridiculous," he said, "to go without eating. Supper is ready." He
helped her to a chair at the table and asked: "Is there a cup for the tea?" "On the
shelf by the window," she answered. When he returned with the cup, he saw that
she had taken a big pickle out of the paper bag and was beginning to eat it. He took
it from her, laughingly, and poured the cup full of milk. "You must drink that
first," he said, "and then you shall have some tea, and then a chicken wing. If you
are very good you will have a pickle to-morrow. And now, if you allow me to be
your guest, we shall have supper."
He took the other chair. The tea brightened the girl's eyes and brought back
some of her colour. She began to eat greedily like some starved wild animal. When
strength returned to her, she began to tell Rudolf her little story. It was one of a
thousand stories that happen in the big city every day—the shop girl's story of very
small wages, of "fines" that go to enlarge the store's profits, of time lost through
illness," and then of lost positions, lost hope and—the knock of Rudolf on the
green door.
But to Rudolf this story sounded as big as the Iliad!
“To think of you going through all that,” he said.
"It was something awful," said the girl.
"And you have no relatives or friends in the city?"
"None."
"I am quite alone in the world, too," said Rudolf, after a pause.
 "I am glad of that," said the girl; and it was pleasant to the young man to hear
it.
Very suddenly her eyelids dropped and she sighed deeply. "I am awfully
sleepy," she said, "and I feel so good." Rudolf rose and took his hat.
"Then I'll say good-night. A long sleep will be good for you."
He held out his hand, and she took it and said "good night." But there was a
question in her eyes, and he answered it with words.
"I'll come again to-morrow to see how you are getting along. You can't get rid
of me so easily."
Then, when he was already at the door, she asked: "How did it happen that
you knocked at my door?"
He looked at her for a moment, remembering the cards, and then he decided
that she must never know the truth. He would never let her know that he knew that
she had resorted to those cards.
"One of our piano tuners lives in this house," he said. "I knocked at your door
by mistake."
The last thing he saw in the room before the green door closed was her smile.
At the head of the stairway' he paused and looked around him.
Then he went up to the floor above, then went slowly down. Every door that
he found in the house was painted green. Wondering, he went down to the
sidewalk. The giant Negro was still there. Rudolf went up to him with the two
cards in his hand.
"Will you tell me why you gave me these cards and what they mean?" he
asked.
With a broad, good-natured smile, the Negro pointed down the street.
"There it is, sir," he said. "but I am afraid, you are a little late for the first act."
Rudolf looked in the direction the Negro pointed and saw above the entrance to a
theatre the electric sign of its new play, "The Green Door."
At the corner of the street in which he lived, Rudolf stopped for a glass of
beer and a cigar. When he came out, he buttoned his coat and said to the lamp-post
on the corner:
"All the same, I believe it was the hand of Fate that showed the way for me to
find her."
This conclusion certainly shows that Rudolf Steiner was a true follower of
Romance and Adventure.