In Jochen Nuessler's house, there was great joy and pleasure: Gottlieb
was elected, was really chosen to be a pastor, and whom had he
especially to thank for it? Who else, but our good, old, simple
Pomuchelskopp; he gave the decisive vote. "Haeuning," said our old
friend, in the church, while the three young candidates, in anguish and
fear, were taking their turns in the pulpit, contending for the parish;
"Haeuning," said he, as Gottlieb concluded, and wiped the sweat from his
pale face,--"Kluecking, we will choose this one, he is the stupidest."
"If you are only sure of it," said his dear wife, "how can you tell one
blockhead from another?"
"Kluecking," said Pomuchelskopp, taking no notice of his wife's
pleasantry, perhaps because he was so accustomed to it, perhaps because
Gottlieb's sermon had touched him, for Gottlieb had preached from the
text, "Forgive your enemies,"--"Haeuning, the first, the one with the
red face, is a son of old Paechter Hamann, and like goes to like, you
should see, he would farm it himself; and the second, see! he is a sly
one, Gustaving saw him looking at the field, a little while ago, and he
asked the Pastor's coachman who took care of the Pastor's barn, the
thing was tumbling to pieces. Neither of them would do; the rector's
son is our man."
"He who reckons wrong, reckons twice," said Haeuning.
"I am not reckoning wrong," said Pomuchelskopp, "the Herr von Rambow
and Nuessler have declined the business, in writing; the young man
cannot farm it himself, he is too stupid, and I need not allow an
under-paechter; he must rent the field to me, and I have it in my own
hands, I can say, 'So much, and not a shilling more!'"
And so Gottlieb was elected, for nearly all the votes were given for
him, only a couple of day-laborers from Rexow voted for their master,
Jochen Nuessler. It was merely a mistake, for they believed it was all
the same, and it was done in friendship.
And in Jochen Nuessler's house, there was great joy and pleasure, and
the two little twin-apples were floating in bright sunshine, down a
clear brook, and nestled close to each other, and Mining floated
joyously with her sister, although her own prospects were not so
brilliant. But she had a little personal ground of rejoicing; her
father, young Jochen, had come in from the field one day, and said this
everlasting working was too hard for him, he wished Rudolph were there;
and Mother had said he ought to be ashamed of himself, he was still a
young fellow; and father had said, "Well, he would manage a little
longer;" but it was the beginning of the final blessedness, and the
thing was a little hook for her hopes to hang upon.
With Lining, however, all was settled and arranged, and the outfit was
purchased, and Frau Nuessler's living-room looked like a spinning-room
and cotton factory; here was spinning, and there was knitting, there
was sewing and embroidering, and twisting and reeling, and skeins were
wound on and wound off, and every one had his share, even young Jochen,
and young Bauschan. Young Jochen was employed as yarn-winder, and sat
up stiffly, with his pipe in his mouth, and held out his arms with a
skein of yarn, and his wife stood before him and wound it off, and when
he believed he was to have a little relief, there came Lining, and then
Mining, and he was a conquered man; but young Bauschan had his share,
also, they were always treading on his toes, and no one had so much
reason to curse this wedding as young Bauschan, till, at last, he
retired from the business altogether, esteeming the rubbish-heap in the
farm-yard a more comfortable place than a room where an outfit was
being prepared.
"So," said Frau Nuessler one evening, folding her hands in her lap,
"Braesig, for all I care, they may be married to-morrow, I am ready with
everything."
"Well," said Braesig, "then make your preparations, for the Pietist and
Lining are sure to be ready too."
"Ah, Braesig, how you talk! The principal thing is still wanting, the
government has not given its assent to the parish--What do you call the
thing?"
"Ah yes, I know. You mean the vocation, as it is generally called, but
I think vocations is the right word, because the blessed Pastor
Behrens, in my younger days, always said vocations."
At this moment, Krischan the coachman came in at the door: "Good
evening, Madam, and here are the papers."
"Are there no letters?" asked Frau Nuessler.
"Yes," said Krischan, "there was a letter."
"Why didn't you bring it then?"
"Well," said Krischan, tossing his head, as if such stupidity could not
be laid to his charge, "there was some trespass-money charged for it,
and I hadn't so much by me."
"What did it cost?"
"Now just think of it, eight thalers! And they said there was a
post-express or a post-payment, or something of that sort,--perhaps it
was brought with post-horses,--and it was for a young Herr, who is our
bridegroom."
"Good gracious, Krischan, such an expensive letter as that! From whom
could it be?"
"I know something," said Krischan, "but I daren't say it," and he
looked at Braesig.
"Before the Herr Inspector, you may say anything," said Frau Nuessler.
"For all I care!" said Krischan. "It was from some woman-creature, but
I have forgotten the name."
"From a woman!" exclaimed Frau Nuessler, "to my son-in-law! and eight
thalers to pay!"
"Everything comes to light!" said Braesig, "even the Pietists get found
out!"
"Yes; it all comes out!" said Krischan, going out of the room.
"Krischan," Frau Nuessler sprang up, "you must go to Rahnstadt to-morrow
with the rye; ask particularly about the name, and I will give you
eight thalers, I must have the letter."
"Good, Madam," said Krischan, "I will get it."
"Braesig," cried Frau Nuessler, throwing herself into her arm-chair,
so that the poor old thing groaned with her weight, "what has my
son-in-law to do with a woman?"
"I don't know," said Braesig. "I am wholly unacquainted with his
affairs, since I don't trouble myself about secrets. Hear to the end,
says Kotelmann, to-morrow we shall know."
"But this Gottlieb, this quiet man!" exclaimed Frau Nuessler.
"The Pietists are not wholly to be trusted," said Braesig. "Never trust
a Jesuit!"
"Braesig!" cried Frau Nuessler, and the old chair shrieked aloud, as she
sprang up, "if there is something concealed here, I shall take back my
child. If Rudolph had done it, I could have forgiven him, for he is a
rough colt, and there is no secrecy about him; but Gottlieb? No, never
in my life! One who can set himself up for a saint, and then do such a
trick--don't come near me! I want nothing to do with such people!"
And when Gottlieb came to the table that evening, his future
mother-in-law looked at him askance, as if she were a shop clerk, and
he were trying to cheat her with a bad groschen. And when he asked
Lining, after supper, if she would take a glass of fresh water up to
his room, she told him Lining had something else to do, and when
Gottlieb turned to Marik, the waiting-maid, she told him he might go to
the pump himself, he could do it as well as Marik. And so she speedily
drew a magic circle around him, over which no woman might pass.
As they sat at table next morning, Krischan came to the door, and
beckoned to Frau Nuessler; "Madam, Oh, just a word." And Frau Nuessler
motioned to Braesig, and the two old lovers went out with Krischan into
the hall.
"Here it is," said Krischan, pulling out a great letter, from his
waistcoat pocket, "and I know the name of the woman, too."
"Well?" asked Frau Nuessler.
"Yes," whispered Krischan privately into Frau Nuessler's ear. "Mine is
her own name, and Sterium is her father's name."
"What? Is her name Mine Sterium?"
"Hoho!" cried Braesig, snatching the letter from Frau Nuessler's hand,
"that comes from ignorance of outlandish names, that is the vocation of
the Ministerium," and he opened the door, and shouted into room:
"Hurrah! You old Pietist, you! Here it is, and next week is the
wedding!"
And Frau Nuessler fell upon old Gottlieb's neck, and kissed him, and
cried, "Gottlieb, my dear Gottlieb, I have done you a great wrong:
never mind, Gottlieb, Lining shall take up water for you, every
evening, and the wedding shall be whenever you please."
"But what is it?" asked Gottlieb.
"No, Gottlieb, I cannot tell you yet; it is too shameful, but when you
have been married three years, I will tell you all about it."
The wedding was celebrated, and a great deal might be told about it,
how Mining and her sister Lining wept bitterly after the ceremony, how
Gottlieb looked really handsome, since Lining had cut off the long
locks, like rusty wheel-nails, out of his neck. But I will tell nothing
about this wedding, but what I saw myself, and that was, the next
morning, at half-past three, the two old friends young Jochen and young
Bauschan, lying on the sofa, arm in arm, asleep.
Habermann was at the wedding, very silent, his Louise was there also,
her inmost heart full of love for her little Lining, but she was also
silent, quietly happy; Frau Pastorin had declined her invitation, but
when the guests were crowding about the bride and bridegroom, and
Jochen, afterwards, was trying to say a word also, the door opened, and
the Frau Pastorin came in, in her widow's mourning, into the bright
marriage joy, and she threw her arms around Lining's neck saying:
"I bless you, I bless you from my heart, and may you be as happy there
as I have been. You are now the nearest to him." and she kissed and
caressed her, and then turned quickly away, and went, without greeting
any one, to the door; there she said, "Habermann!"
But she need not have spoken, for he stood by her already, and when she
was in the carriage, he sat by her side, and they drove back to
Gurlitz.
At Gurlitz, they got out of the carriage, the pastor's coachman, Juern,
must wait,--and went to the churchyard, and they held each other by the
hand, and looked at the green grave, on which bright flowers were
growing, and as they turned away, she said with a deep, deep sigh, as
when one has drained a full cup, "Habermann, I am ready," and he placed
her in the carriage, and drove with her to Rahnstadt.
"Louise is discreet," she said, "she took charge of everything for me,
this morning."
They went together through the new house, and the little Frau Pastorin
thanked him, and kissed him, for his friendship, that he had arranged
everything just as it was in Gurlitz, and she looked out of the window,
and said, "Everything, everything, but no grave!"
They stood for a long time at the window, then Habermann pressed her
hand, and said, "Frau Pastorin, I have a favor to ask, I have given
notice to Herr von Rambow, and shall leave next Christmas; can you
spare me the little gable room, and will you take me at your table?"
At a less agitated moment, she would have had much to ask, and much to
say; but now she said merely.
"Where Louise and I live, you are always the nearest."
Yes, so it is in the world, what is one's joy is another's sorrow, and
weddings and graves lie close together, and yet the distance between
them is wider than between summer heat and winter cold; but there is a
wonderful kind of people in the world,--if one seeks one can find
them,--who can throw a kind of wonderful, heaven-climbing bridges, from
one heart to another, over the gulfs which the world has torn open, and
such a bridge was built between the little, round Pastors' wives,
Lining of Rexow, and Frau Pastorin of Rahnstadt; and when the key stone
was dropped into place, exactly over the parsonage at Gurlitz, they
fell into each other's arms, and held so fast together that to their
life's end they were never parted.
And our old Gottlieb! He did his share, he brought stones and
mortar,--he had but a brief experience in the pastoral office; but I
must say that, when he preached his entrance sermon, he thought less of
himself than of his faithful predecessor, the old Pastor Behrens.
"He sticks to common sense," said Braesig, as he came out of the church,
and he patted Lining's cheek, and gave Mining a kiss. "The pietists
often become very reasonable people; but they think too much of the
devil. I have a very good pietist acquaintance, that is the Pastor
Mehlsack, a really clever man, but he is so taken up with the devil
that he says scarcely anything about the Lord; and there is the pastor
in the beautiful Krakow region, who has paddagraphically discovered
that there are three hundred, three and thirty thousand different
devils running about the world, not counting the regular devil and his
grandmother. And you see, Lining, what an inconvenience it is for us:
you sit down in Rahnstadt with your good friends around a punch bowl,
and you drink to this one, and to that one, and then to another, and at
your side sits a gentleman in a brown dress-coat,--for the devil always
wears a brown dress-coat, he must, that is his uniform,--and he talks,
the whole evening, very friendly things to you, and when you wake up
next morning there he stands before you, and says, 'Good morning! you
signed yourself to me last evening,' and then he shows you his cloven
foot, and if he is polite he takes out his tail, and slaps you over the
ears with it, and there you are, his rightful property. So it is with
the honest Pietists, the others are a great deal worse."
And so Gottlieb and Lining were settled in the pastor's house, and
Mining was naturally much with them, and it often happened that good
old Gottlieb embraced Mining, in the twilight, and gave her a kiss,
instead of Lining; but it was all in friendship, he had no other
design.
But Pomuchelskopp had a design, when he came with his wife and Malchen
and Salchen to make their first call on the young Herr Pastor. And this
design was the pastor's acre, and the blue dress-coat with the gilt
buttons said to the black coat he would take the field, and offered him
just half the sum which the Herr von Rambow had given, and our old
Haeuning stood up and said, that was all it was worth, and it could not
be otherwise disposed of, for Jochen Nuessler had declined it, and old
Gottlieb stood there bowing to the blue dress-coat, and was going to
say "yes," when Lining sprang up like a ball, out of the sofa-corner,
and said, "Hold! In this business, I have a word to say. We must
consult other people," and she called, from the door, "uncle Braesig,
will you come in, a moment?"
And he came, placing himself audaciously in a linen frock, before the
blue dress-coat, and asked, "How so?"
And Lining sprang towards him saying, "Uncle Braesig, the field shall
not be rented. It will be my chief pleasure."
"So it shall not, my dear Frau Pastorin Lining," and he bent down, and
gave her a kiss, "I will farm it for you my personal self."
"I am not obliged to allow an under-paechter," cried Pomuchelskopp.
"Nor shall you, nor shall you, Herr Zamel! I will merely manage it as
inspector for the Herr Pastor himself."
"Herr Nuessler gave it to me in writing."
"That you are a blockhead!" said his Haeuning, and drew him angrily out
of the room.
"My dear Herr Pastor," said uncle Braesig, going with Gottlieb into the
garden, "you have not to thank me for this arrangement, but only your
dear wife, Lining. It is really worthy of notice, how positive these
innocent little creatures become, after they are married. Well, never
mind, perhaps they know best. You, from your Christian stand-point,
about the blows on the right and left cheeks, you will read me a
lecture about hatred, but hatred must be,--where there is no hate,
there is no love, and the story of the blows is all nonsense to me. I
have a hatred, I hate Zamel Pomuchelskopp! Why? How? What? He says
'Sie' to you, and wouldn't you hate him?"
"My dear Herr Inspector, this wicked axiom----" and he would, in his
new office of pastor, have preached the old man a sharp sermon, as he
had before about fishing if, Lining had not fortunately come along, and
throwing her arms around his neck cried, "uncle Braesig, uncle Braesig,
how shall we repay you for giving up your leisure for us?"
"Don't trouble yourself about that, Lining, where there is hate there
is also love; but did you notice how I called him merely Herr Zamel,
although he was christened by the more distinguished name, 'Zamwel?'"
"You mean Samuel," interrupted Gottlieb.
"No, Herr Pastor, 'Samuel' is a Jew's name, and although he is a real
Jew,--that is, a white one,--he was baptized by the Christian name of
Zamwel, and his wife by the name of Karnallje."
"Uncle Braesig," cried Lining, laughing heartily, "how you mix things
together! Her name is Cornelia."
"It is possible, Lining, that she lets herself be called so now,
because she is ashamed of it, but I have seen it with my very eyes. The
old pastor at Bobzin had died; and the sexton had to keep the church
books, and there it stood; 'Herr Zamwel Pomuchelskopp to Fraeulein
Karnallje Klaetterpott,' for she is a born Klaetterpott, and she is a
Karnallje too. But, Lining, let her go; they shall not trouble us, and
we two will have a pleasant time together, and you shall give me the
little corner room, that overlooks the yard, and the devil must be in
it, if in a year and a day, our young pastor isn't in a condition to
farm his land himself. And now, adieu," and he went off, the old
heathen, who could not give up his hatred.
Bat he who will hate, must expect to be hated in turn; and nobody was
more hated that day than uncle Braesig. When the Pomuchelskopps had
reached home, Haeuning stroked the quiet, simple father of a family, and
Mecklenburg law-giver, the wrong way, and stung his poor knightly flesh
with thorns and nettles, and the constant conclusion of her satirical
remarks was: "Yes, Kopp, you are as prudent as the Danish horses, that
come home three days before it rains!"
At last, our old friend could bear it no longer, he sprang up out of
his sofa-corner, and cried:
"Malchen, I beg of you, have I not always cared for you as a father?"
But Malchen was as deep in the Rostock Times, as if her own betrothal
were recorded there.
"Salchen, is it my fault that the world is so bad?"
But Salchen embroidered earnestly on the flesh of a little cupid, and
sighed, as if it were a pity that her dear father were not the little
cupid; and to fill his cup, Gustaving came in, and rattled the keys on
the board, as if he was attempting to set this lovely family scene to
appropriate music.
But too much is too much! Human nature can bear only a limited amount;
our old friend must show his refractory family that he was master in
his own house, so he ran out of the room, and left them alone; he ran
into the garden, as far as the sundial, but what good did it do? He had
exercised his rightful power on his own flesh and blood, but he himself
was no happier, for before his eyes lay the pastor's acre, the
beautiful pastor's acre. And beyond lay Pumpelhagen, fair, fair
Pumpelhagen, which rightfully belonged to him, for he had given for the
Pastor's acre two thousand thalers, payment in advance, and how much
more to Slusuhr and David, and that beggar, the Herr von Rambow! He
could not bear the sight, he turned away, and looked up into the blue
harvest heaven, and asked, was there no righteousness left in the
world?
Then came Phillipping, and tugged at his blue dress-coat,--for out
of spite to his Haeuning, he had kept it on, against all law and
order,--and said the Herr von Rambow was there, and wished to speak to
him.
The Herr von Rambow? Come, wait! now he had one whom he could torment
in turn, upon whom he could avenge the sufferings his family had caused
him; the Herr von Rambow? wait! he was going in, but there he came
himself, towards him.
"Good morning, my respected Herr neighbor, how are you? I wanted to
learn how it has gone about the pastor's acre."
So? Pastor's acre? No, wait, don't let him see it! Pomuchelskopp looked
down at the little bit of a nose which nature had given him, and said
not a word.
"Now, how has it been?" asked Axel. But Pomuchelskopp said neither good
nor bad, and looked along his nose, as if it extended for miles.
"My dear Herr Neighbor, what is the matter? It is all right, I hope?"
"I hope so," said Muchel, stooping to pull a weed out of the potatoes;
"at least your note for the two thousand thalers is all right."
"What?" asked Axel, astonished, "what has that to do with it?"
Wait, Axel! that is all coming right; keep still! he only wants to
tease you a little. What must be, must.
"You, Herr von Rambow," said Muchel, still plucking weeds, and turning
a red face up to the young Herr, "you have the two thousand thalers,
and I the Pastor's acre,--that is to say, I haven't it."
"But, Herr Neighbor, you were so sure"----
"Not nearly so sure as you, you have the two thousand thalers--haven't
you? You got them? and I"--and he shook his left leg, and thrust the
words out from his chest, "and I--I have--the devil!"
"But----"
"Ah, let your 'Buts' alone, I have heard 'Buts' enough this morning;
our business is about these notes," and he felt in his pocket, "So! I
have another coat on, and have not the pocket by me where they are. One
was due three weeks ago."
"But, my dear Herr Neighbor, how came you to think of it just to-day?
It is not my fault, that you have not been able to rent the acre."
It does you no good, Axel, keep still! He'll not do anything, only
torment you a little. Pomuchelskopp had heard too much already to-day,
about that cursed field, to trouble himself about it any longer, so he
passed by Axel's remark, and took another turn at the screw.
"I am an amiable man, I am a friendly man; the people say, also, that I
am a rich man, but I am not rich enough to throw my money into the
street, I cannot afford that yet. But, Herr von Rambow, I must see
something, I must see something. I must see that the soul stays in a
gentleman, and when one has signed a note, then he must also see----"
"My best Herr Neighbor," interrupted Axel, in great distress, "I had
clean forgotten it. I beg you--I had not thought of it at all."
"So?" asked Muchel, "not thought of it? But a man _should_ think,
and"--he was going on, but his eye fell upon Pumpelhagen; no I don't
let him notice! why should he shake the tree, the plums were not yet
ripe. "And," he continued, "I owe all this to my friendship for that
miserable fellow, that Braesig. So he has repaid the kindnesses I did
him in his youth. I lent him money when he wanted to buy a watch, he
has worn trousers of mine when his were torn, and now? Ah! I know well
how it all hangs together,--that old hypocrite, Habermann, is behind."
Give the devil a finger, and he soon takes the whole hand, and then he
leads you whither he will, and if it suits his humour, he holds you before
him, and you must pray in distress and sorrow, in anguish and pain.
So it was with Axel; he must agree, in a friendly way, with the Herr
Proprietor, he must hew at the same timber, against his honor and
conscience, he must slander Braesig and Habermann. Why? Because the
devil, with his note in his hand, pressed him down on his knees. And he
did it, too; the gay, careless lieutenant of cuirassiers lay on his
knees before the devil, and talked all sorts of malice and detraction
concerning Braesig and Habermann, to appease his old Moloch, in the blue
dress-coat; he was a traitor to his best friends, he was a traitor to
his God. But when he came to himself sufficiently to be aware of what
he had done, he was full of self-contempt, and rode hastily away from
the house, where he had left a great part of his honor.
He rode home, and as he came to the boundary of his fields, he
saw Habermann, in the oppressive heat of the sun, following the
sowing-machine, and preparing everything for the seed-time, and for
whom? For _himself_, he must answer, and the coals of fire burned his
head. And when he had ridden a little farther, a linen frock appeared
before him, and Uncle Braesig came toiling up, shouting across the
field, "Good day, Karl! I am on the right apropos, that is to say on a
preliminary cow business and it is all right; we are going to farm it
ourselves, and Zamel Pomuchelskopp may go hang;" and then he heard
Axel's horse, and turned round, and the worm, that was gnawing in
Axel's breast, made him a little more friendly to the old fellow, and
he said:
"Good day, Herr Inspector! What? always on your legs?"
"Why not, Herr Lieutenant? They still hold out, in spite of the
Podagra, and I have undertaken to procure an inventory for the young
pastor people, and am on my way to Gulzow, to Bauer Puegal; he has a
couple of milch cows, that I want to acquire for the Herr Pastor."
"You understand all the details of farming, Herr Inspector?" asked
Axel, in order to be friendly.
"Thank God," said Braesig, "I am so well acquainted with all the
details, that I don't need to learn them at all. One of our kind needs
only to cast an eye at anything, and he knows just how it is. Do you
see, I was yesterday," and he pointed over to Axel's paddocks, "down by
your Podexes, and I saw that the mares and the colts were all down in
the lowest one, and why? They steal the oats out of the crib, and if
you want them to come to anything, you must put a padlock on."
Axel looked sharply at him: was this a piece of pure malice on the old
fellow's part? Of course! He gave his horse the spur: "Adieu!"
"If the blockhead won't take it, he need not!" said Braesig, looking
after him. "I meant it well enough. It looks to me as if the young
nobleman--well, take care! You will yet come, on your hands and feet,
to your senses. Karl," he cried, across the field, "he has pushed me
off again!" and he went away, on his cow business.