This is not the place, of course, to describe what the year brought
with it, of good or evil, for the world, every one may do that, after
his own fashion; nor shall I undertake to relate the consequences, or
investigate the causes of its events in the rest of the world; but only
to tell what it brought with it for the company with whom I have
especially to do, is more than I can do off-hand; or my book would come
to an end in a very unsatisfactory way.
When the uproar broke out in Paris, in February, it was as far off from
Mecklenburg as Turkey itself, and was to most people rather amusing
than otherwise; they were pleased to have something going on in the
world. A great taste for politics was developed in Rahnstadt, and the
postmaster said, if it went on like that, it would be too much
for them, he had been obliged to order eleven new papers,--four
Hamburg-Correspondents, and seven "Tanten-Vossen,"--and this proportion
was itself a bad sign, for the "Tanten-Vossen" had a tendency to
undermine all the conditions of society; they might not _mean_ any harm
by their nonsense, but they _did_ it.
So four and forty Rahnstadt politicians were provided for, since at
least four, on an average, read the same newspaper, and the juvenile
offspring of the Rahnstadt grandees ran about the streets with the
papers, and took them punctually from house to house, as if their
worthy parents were training them for post-boys. But what were eleven
papers, in such a town as Rahnstadt? The majority of the citizens had
nothing of the sort, and some provision must be made for them, and so
there was.
"Johann," said Hanne Bank's wife, "where are you going again?"
"Eh, Dolly, over to Grammelin's a little while."
"You go to the ale-house altogether too much, of late."
"Eh, Dolly, only one glass of beer! Rein, the advocate is going to read
us the papers again this evening; a man must know what is going on in
the world."
And Hanne Bank and fifty others went after their beer. The advocate
Rein sat by the table, holding a newspaper in his hand; he looked along
the table once or twice, and cleared his throat. "Quiet!" "Quiet!"
"Grammelin, another glass of beer!" "Karl, hold your tongue! he is
going to read." "Thunder and lightning! can't I be served with a glass
of beer first?" "Well, now keep still!" and the advocate began to read.
He read about Lyons and Milan and Munich; revolutions were breaking out
everywhere, and spreading all over the world. "Come, here is
something," said he. "'Island of Ferro, the 5th inst. The island is in
great excitement; they intend taking away our meridian, which we have
had over three hundred years, and transferring it to Greenwich, in
England. Great animosity to the English. The people take up arms; our
two regiments of hussars are ordered to the defence of the Meridian.'"
"Just think of that, how they are going on!" "Yes, neighbor, that is no
small matter; when one has had a thing three hundred years, it must be
hard to do without it." "Neighbor, do you know what a meridian is?"
"Eh, what should it be? It must be something the English can make a
good use of. You see, you wouldn't believe me, yesterday, that the
English were at the bottom of the whole trouble, now you hear it for
yourself."
Advocate Rein laid the paper on the table, and said, "The business is
getting serious; one may well feel anxious and disturbed."
"Good heavens, what is the matter now?" "Has anything serious happened?"
"Serious? I should think so! Just listen! 'North pole, 27th February.
An extremely dangerous and serious outbreak has occurred among the
Esquimaux; they obstinately refuse to turn the earth's axis any longer,
and they pretend there is a lack of train-oil, for greasing, since the
whale-fisheries have been so bad, during the last year. The
consequences of this disturbance, for the whole world, are not to be
reckoned.'"
"Thunder and lightning! what is that? Will the whole concern stand
still?"
"Eh, the government must do something about it!"
"Eh, neighbor, the nobility will not suffer that."
"I don't believe a word of it," said Hanne Bank.
"You don't believe it? Well, as a shoemaker, you should know something
about it. Hasn't train-oil gone up since last year?"
"Well, children," said Wimmersdorf, the tailor, "so much I say, no good
can come of it."
"Well," cried another, "it is all one to me! If the skies fall, the
sparrows will drop dead. But so much I say, _we_ have to work, and
shall those lazy dogs at the north pole sit with their hands in their
laps? Grammelin, another glass of beer!"
From these stories one may perceive three things; first, that the
advocate, Rein, read not merely out of the papers, but occasionally out
of his head, and that he was a waggish fellow, and, secondly, that the
Rahnstadt burghers were not yet quite ripe for the newspapers, and,
thirdly, that men, as a general thing, look at a matter very coolly,
when it does not affect their own interests.
But it was coming nearer to us. One fine day, the Berlin post did not
arrive, and the Rahnstadters stood in a great crowd before the
post-office, asking themselves, what was the meaning of this? and the
grooms who had come to fetch the post-bags for the country places,
asked themselves whether they should wait or not; and the only
contented man, in all this disturbance, was the Herr Postmaster, who
stood before the door, with his hands folded on his stomach, twirling
his thumbs, and saying, for thirty years he had not had such a quiet
time, between eleven and twelve o'clock in the morning, as to-day. The
next day, instead of the little newsboys, came the grandees themselves,
and instead of the grooms the gentlemen themselves rode in, but that
did not help the matter, for still the post did not come; but instead,
it began to be whispered about that a revolution had broken out at
Berlin. One knew this, and another that, and old Duesing, the potter,
who lived by the gate, said he had heard cannon firing distinctly, all
the morning, which all the people honestly believed, although Rahnstadt
is twenty-four miles from Berlin. Only his neighbor, Hagen, the
wheelwright, said, "Gossip, that cannon firing was done by me; I have
been splitting beechen-logs all the morning in my wood-shed."
The third day a post came; but not from Berlin, only from Oranienburg;
and they brought along a man, who could have told everything, since he
was himself in Berlin at the time, if he had not talked himself so
hoarse that by the time he reached Rahnstadt he could not speak a loud
word. He was a clerical candidate belonging in the region, and the
Rahnstadters knew him and nourished him with egg-nog to clear his
throat; he drank a considerable quantity of the stuff, but it
did no good; he pointed to his throat and chest, shook his head
and was going away. But it was asking too much of the Rahnstadters to
expect them to submit to such a disappointment, they wouldn't let him
off, and the candidate was obliged to give a representation of the
Berlin revolution, in pantomime. So he constructed a couple of
barricades,--in the air, so to speak, for, if he had taken hold of the
Rahnstadt paving stones literally, the police would have been after
him,--he shot, with his cane, behind the barricades, he stormed
them,--still with his cane,--from in front, he ran about wildly among
the people to represent the dragoons, and succeeded in imitating the
thunder of the cannon, for he was just able to say "Bumm!"
So the Rahnstadters knew, now, how a revolution looked, and how it
should be conducted, and they sat together and drank beer and disputed,
and things began to look so serious that even our friend Rein did not
try to get off any more of his North pole stories. Sometimes, now,
also, the grandees would come and drink beer, to earn popularity
against the time when the revolution should begin here.
And it was seriously thought of. There were wide-awake people in
Rahnstadt, as well as in other places, and although the citizens had no
great common grievance, each had his little individual difficulty upon
which to hang his discontent, one had this, another that, and Kurz had
the stadtbullen. So it came about that all were united in the opinion
that things must be different, and it would come to no good, if they
did not have their revolution also,--that is to say, a little one.
Out of the indefinite reading of newspapers, came a definite
Reformverein, with a president and a bell; and the irregular running up
and down became regular, and the number of visitors became so large
that the company adjourned, one evening, from the beer-house to the
hall; but they took their beer-mugs along with them. All this happened
in the greatest order, which is rather astonishing when one considers
that the company was made up of discontented people, for the only
contented member of the union was the landlord, Grammelin. They had
speech-making in the hall, at first from the tables and benches; but
that was to be altered. Thiel, the joiner, made a round sort of thing,
which should serve for the speaker's stand, and the first speech made
from it was by Dreiern, the cooper, against Thiel himself, since he
considered the thing to be rather cooper's work than joiner's work, and
begged of the assembly protection for his trade. He did not carry it
through, however, although it was apparent to all that the thing bore a
striking resemblance to a cooling-vat for a brandy-still. The old stout
baker, Wredow, also failed in carrying his motion that the cask should
be made larger, since there was no room to move about in it; for, as
Wimmersdorf the tailor told him, the thing was not made for stout
people; they had had enough of folks who cared merely for their own
comfort. The thing was meant for those who had nothing on their ribs,
and it was large enough for them. And so it happened that only the lean
people got a chance to speak, and the stout folks in their anger and
vexation stayed away, at which the others declared themselves to be
well pleased. But it was a mistake, for in this way they expelled "the
quiet element"--as it was called--from the union, and in their stead
the day-laborers crowded in, and now they were ready for the
revolution. The only two people of comfortable dimensions who still
remained in the Reformverein, were Schultz the carpenter and Uncle
Braesig.
No one could be more contented, in these restless times, than Uncle
Braesig; he was always on the street; he was like a bee, or rather a
humble-bee, and looked upon every house-door and every window in
Rahnstadt as a flower whence he could suck news, and when his appetite
was satisfied he flew back to his place, and fed his friend Karl with
his bee-bread: "Karl, they have driven away Louis Philippe."
"Is that in the papers?"
"I read it myself. Karl, he must have been an old coward. How is it
possible a king could let himself be driven away?"
"Eh, Braesig, such things have happened before. Don't you remember about
the Swedish Gustavus? When a people are all united against him, a king
stands entirely alone."
"You are fight there, Karl; but yet I wouldn't have run away. Thunder
and lightning! I would sit on my throne and put the crown on my head,
and kick and thrash with my arms and legs, if any one touched me."
He came later, saying, "Karl, the post has not come again from Berlin,
to-day, and your young Herr rode in splashing through the streets, up
to the post-office, to make inquiries himself, and why not? But it came
near going badly with him, for some of the burghers were already
plotting together there, and asking themselves, by way of example,
whether they ought to allow a nobleman to go splashing through the mud
like that. Well, he rode off, afterwards, in quite a different manner,
towards Moses' house, and then the matter was dropped. I had a word to
say to Moses, and went there shortly after, and as I came up he was
just coming out of the door; he looked at me, but did not know me; not
that I take it unkindly of him, for his head was full of his own
affairs, for I could hear Moses saying, 'What I have said, I have said:
I will lend no money to a gambler.' Moses is coming here, this
afternoon."
So, in the afternoon, Moses came. "Habermann, it is correct, it is all
correct about Berlin."
"What? has it broken out there?"
"It has broken out,--but don't say anything about it; this morning the
son of Manasseh came to me from Berlin, travelling post; he is going to
make a business of buying up old flint-locks, he has got some thirty
thousand, left from the year '15."
"What can he do with his flint-locks?" cried Braesig; "every educated
person uses percussion locks, now-a-days."
"What do I know?" said Moses. "I know a good deal, and I know nothing
at all. He thinks, when it begins, there will be a demand for the old
muskets with the flint-locks, too, and he told me at Berlin they shot
with flint-locks and sabres and pistols and cannon on the people, and
it went 'Puh! puh!' the whole night, and the cuirassiers rode through
the streets, and the people threw stones, and shot out of windows, and
from behind the barricades. Terrible! terrible! but don't say anything
about it."
"So there was a regular cannonization?" inquired Braesig.
"Good heavens!" cried Habermann, "what times these are! what dreadful
times!"
"Why, what do you call dreadful times? It is always bad times for the
foolish, and always good for the wise. When we had good times, I had no
reason for drawing in my money, and giving notice here and there. For
an old man like me, these are good times."
"But, Moses, have you no anxiety, when everything seems going to
destruction? You are well known to be a rich man."
"Well, I am not afraid; my Bluemchen came and whispered to me, and David
came,--he trembled like that,--and said, 'Father, what shall we do with
our money?' 'Do with it?' said I, 'do as we have done. Lend, where it
is safe, do business where it is safe; we can be "people" too, if it is
necessary. Let your beard grow, David,' I said, 'the times require it.'
'Well, and when other times come?' he asked me. 'Then you can cut it
off again,' I said, 'the times will not require it then.'"
The talk then turned upon Axel, and his difficulties, and the fact that
money and credit were nowhere to be had, and there was much to say on
that point, for if credit fell property must fall with it, and many a
one would not be able to keep his estate. And when Moses was gone the
two old farmers sat together through the evening, with the Frau
Pastorin, and the talk wandered sadly, hither and thither, and the Frau
Pastorin clasped her hands, once and again. Over the wicked world, and,
for the first time, thanked her Creator that her pastor had been taken
away before these evil times, and had not lived to see such unchristian
behavior; and Habermann felt like a man who has given up a fine
business, which had grown very dear to him, and now sees his successor
going to destruction. Braesig, however, did not allow himself to be
dismayed; he held up his head, and said these agitations, which were
spreading over the whole world, were not merely the result of human
invention, our Lord had his hand in the business as much as ever; at
least. He had allowed it, and after the storm the air would be clear
again. "And, Karl," he added,--"I say nothing about you, Frau
Pastorin,--but if I may advise you, Karl, you should come with me,
tomorrow evening, to Grammelin's, for we are not mere rebels, and do
you know how it seems to me? Just as it is in a stormy day; if you
stand in the house and look out, you shudder and shrink, but once out
in the midst of the rain, you scarcely notice it."
So Braesig attended the Reformverein at Rahnstadt, and every evening
came back to the house, and told what had happened there. One evening,
he came home later than usual: "They have gone crazy, today, Karl, and
I have drank a couple of glasses more beer than usual, merely
on account of the great importance of the matter. You see, the
day-laborers have all become members of the union, and why not? we are
all brothers. And the cursed fools have been planning that the whole
limits of the town of Rahnstadt must be measured over again, and cut up
into equal sections, and every one is to have just so much land, and
every one is to have the right to cut down a beech-tree, from the town
forest, for the winter; then there will be regular equality among men.
Then all who owned land got up; they were for equality, but they wished
to keep their property, and Kurz made a long speech about fields and
meadows, and introduced the stadtbullen into them; and when he had
finished they reviled him for an aristocrat, and turned him out. And
then the tailor, Wimmersdorf, stepped up, and discoursed about the
freedom of the trades, and the other tailors attacked him, and
belabored him unmercifully, they wanted equality, they said, but they
must have guilds for all that. And a young man got up, and asked,
mockingly, how it should be with the tailoresses? Should they be
admitted to the guilds, or not? And the old master tailors would have
nothing of the kind, and then the young people declared themselves for
the tailoresses, and turned out the old tailors, and there was a great
uproar outside; and, in the hall, Rector Baldrian made a long, long
speech, in which there was a great deal about the emanzipulation--or
something else--of the female sex, and he made the proposition, that if
the master tailors would not admit the tailoresses into their guild,
the tailoresses should establish a guild of their own, for they were as
good human sisters as any other guild; and that was passed, and the
tailoresses are a guild now, and I was told, as I was going out, the
tailoresses would be out to-morrow, in white dresses, with their
forewomen at the head. Karl, that old, yellow old maid who goes by here
every day, that they always call a Tartar, should lead them to the
rector's house, and thank him, and in token of gratitude for his speech
should present him with a woolen under-jacket and drawers, on a
cushion."
"Braesig! Braesig!" exclaimed Habermann, "what nonsense you are talking!
One would think you had nobody above you, and that you could decide
everything for yourselves."
"Why not, Karl? Who is to hinder us? We make our resolutions, as well
as we know how, and if nothing comes of it, why, nothing comes of it;
and nothing ever will come of it, in my opinion, for you see, Karl, the
whole story comes to one point; all will have something, and nobody
will give up anything."
"So it is, to be sure, Zachary, and I do not think, in this little
city, there will be much harm done, for one party will always oppose
the other; but, just think, if the day-laborers, in the country, should
get the idea of dividing the estates, what would become of us then?"
"Eh, Karl, but they won't do it!"
"Braesig, it lies deep in human nature, this desire to call a little bit
of our earth one's own, and they are not the worst men who care the
most for it. Look around you! When the mechanic has laid up something,
then he buys himself a little garden, a little field, and has his
pleasure as well as his profit in it, and the laboring man in the city
may do the same, for he has the possibility; and for that reason, I do
not believe the discontent of the laborers, here in the city, is of
much consequence. But it is different with the laborers in the country;
they have no property, and, with all their industry and frugality, can
never acquire any. If these opinions should spread among them, and
ignorant men should attempt to carry them into effect, you would see,
the consequences would be bad. Yes," he cried, "at first, it would
begin merely among the bad masters, but who will be security that it
shall not extend to the good also?"
"Karl, you may be right, Karl, for this evening Kurz told me,--that is
to say, before he was turned out,--that, last Sunday, a couple of
Gurlitz laborers used very singular expressions at his counter."
"Do you see," said Habermann, and took up his candle to go to bed, "I
wish no evil to any one, though many may have deserved it, but it is
sad that the good masters should suffer with the bad, and that the
punishment, which falls justly here and there, should fall upon the
whole country."
With that he went off, and Braesig said to himself, "Truly! Karl may be
right, in the country it might go badly, I must go immediately to look
after young Jochen and Pastor Gottlieb. Well, there is no danger about
young Jochen, he has never said a word to his laborers, and they will
say nothing to him, and the pastor's Juern is decidedly no rebel."
Habermann's opinion of the people, with whom he had so long been
connected, was just; through the whole country spread a restlessness,
like a fever. The most well-founded complaints, and the most
unreasonable and shameless demands went from mouth to mouth, among the
people, and what was at first lightly whispered was soon loudly spoken
out. The masters were mostly to blame for it, themselves; they had lost
their heads, each one acted on his own hook, and selfishness became
very evident, when each cared merely for his own interests, and,
provided he could live in peace with his people, did not trouble
himself about his neighbor. Instead of going forward, with a good
conscience, in the old, friendly intercourse with the people, some
masters cringed before their own laborers, and granted all their
unreasonable demands; others mounted the high horse, and would compel
them with sword and pistol, and I have known some who would not ride
about their own fields without a couple of rifles in the wagon. And
why? Because they had not a good conscience, and had long ceased to
have any friendly feelings towards their people. Of course, this was
not true of all masters, nor was it true of Axel; he had never been
unkind to his people, nor was he generally hard, but he could become
so, if he believed his position as master to be in danger. Under such
circumstances as the present, every one showed his true character, and
it required a very cool and experienced head to look over the whole
tumult and trouble, hold oneself in readiness for action, and decide
what was good and what was evil, and how one should steer his ship
safely through these swelling waves.
This was not the case with Axel, he sat in the midst of the whole
confusion, and groped blindly about him for resources which he should
have found in himself, and so it happened, that he committed both
follies of the masters, now he would yield unwisely, and again the
lieutenant of cuirassiers would get the ascendancy, and he would seize
his pistols and sabre. The people were not what they had been, and that
was his own fault; for at one time he would deprive them of little
things, which, from old custom, were dear to the heart of the small
folk, and again, in a fit of good nature, he would give liberally all
sorts of favors, and that made the people greedy, for he did not
understand human nature, especially that of the small folk, in the
country. He would praise the people when they had been idle, and scold
them when they had been industrious, for he did not know how much they
could bear. In short, he had not treated them in accordance with right
and justice, but merely according to his own caprices, and because
these had not lately been favorable, discontent had increased among the
day-laborers, and against such solid old oaks as would not easily burn,
or let the flame kindle, was piled one dry fir-branch after another,
until, at last, they begin to take fire.
Every one knows that only diseased firs afford such dry branches, and
in Axel's neighborhood stood such a diseased fir-tree, which was full
of splinters, and that was Gurlitz. This tree had formerly been quite
sound; but, in spite of all Pastor Behrens could do to preserve it,
it had decayed, for each of the several masters, whom they had
exchanged for another, had taken away branch after branch, and the old
tar-barrel, Pomuchelskopp, was really glad that it was diseased, and
thought merely of the fat he could roast out of it; for there are
masters,--sad to say,--who prefer a bad state of things, among their
day-laborers, to a sound one, and rejoice when they have their people
at a disadvantage, because they can skin them the better. But
Pomuchelskopp had not taken it into account that, when the lightning
strikes such a dry tree, it will burn quicker and brighter than a sound
one; and the neighbors of our Herr Proprietor, who knew very well that
the Gurlitz people were in a bad way, and often jested about it, never
thought that the fire which Pomuchelskopp--of course without meaning
it--had kindled for his own destruction, might also happen to scorch
themselves, and Gurlitz might be the bonfire, from which the whole
region should be kindled. The Gurlitz laborers had taken to drinking
brandy, because there was a distillery at the court, and they could
have brandy on credit, through the week, to be deducted from their
wages on pay-day, and they were in the habit of running to the city, to
spend every shilling--spare or not,--at the shops in Rahnstadt, and
here they had learned what was going on in the world, and the shopmen
had also instructed them how it ought to go on in the world, and then
they came home, and put their besotted ignorance together, and kindled
it with their greedy wishes, till it rose up in blue flames, and their
half-starved wives and children stood behind them, like ghosts, and
they thrust in the splinters of the dry fir-tree,--that is, their
poverty and distress,--and ran with them about the neighborhood, and so
they had kindled even the honest, tough old oaks.
It did not blaze out openly, at first, there was much opposition to be
overcome; there were well-meant words of intelligent people, there was
the old dependence, there was the recollection of former benefits,
there was the eternal justice, which holds out long, even in a diseased
soul, and presses its sting into the conscience, and all this fell like
cold rain on the glowing embers, and kept the fire from blazing out,
even in Gurlitz. Had they been able to read the souls of their masters,
however, it would have blazed up merrily, for in Pomuchelskopp's heart
the common hatred and the most pitiable cowardice strove for the
mastery, for his good conscience had long ago taken leave of him, and
he could not rely upon his former kind treatment. At one moment he
would cry cut in rage, "Oh, these wretches! I should only---- There
must be new laws made! What have I to do with a government that has
troops, and will not let them march? What! My property is in danger, my
government must protect my property." And the next moment he would call
his Gustaving in from the yard: "Gustaving, you blockhead, why are you
running about among the threshers, let them thresh as they please, I
will have no quarrel with my people," and he turned to his Haeuning, who
sat there, stiff as a stake, her sharp nose and her sharp eyes turned
steadily in one direction, and not even shaking her head, "Haeuning," he
said, "I know what you think, you mean I should let them see that I am
the master; but it won't do, it really won't do, Kluecking! we must be
careful, we must be careful, with great caution we may possibly pull
through."
Haeuning said nothing to this advice, but she looked as if, for her
part, she had no intention of acting upon it, and Pomuchelskopp turned
to Malchen and Salchen: "Children, I beg of you, not a word of what is
spoken here! Not a word to the servants! and be friendly to the people,
and beg your dear mama to be friendly also. Lord knows, I have always
been for friendliness!"
And then Malchen and Salchen began upon Haeuning: "Mama, you have'nt
heard, you don't know what is going on everywhere. Johann Jochen told
in the kitchen how the laborers' wives have scourged the proprietor Z.
of X. with nettles. Mama, we must give in to them; it won't do."
"You are all fools," said Haeuning, going out of the room. "Shall I be
afraid of such a pack?" and she closed the door. But in this condition
of supernatural, heroic courage, she stood quite alone, and without
other help it was quite useless, for Muchel in his distress for the
future, would neither stir nor move, and the remaining members of this
simple family, for once, sided with their father.
"Children," cried the father, "every one must be treated kindly. The
confounded wretches! Who would have thought of this, three months ago?
Philipping and Nanting, you must not beat the village children any
more, and don't draw an ass's head on the back of old Brinkman's coat
again! These rascals! But they are set on by that cursed Rahnstadt
Reformverein, and by the Jews and the shopkeepers; but wait a bit!"
"Yes, father," said Salchen, "and Ruhrdanz the weaver has already
joined the Reformverein, and the rest of the villagers will all follow
his example; and it may be a bad thing."
"Good heavens, I should think so! But wait, I must get the start of
them, I will join it myself."
"You?" cried the two girls, in one breath, as if their father had
proposed to sit fire to his house and home, with his own hands.
"I must, I must! It will make me popular among the burghers, so that
they will not excite the canaille against me; I will pay up the
tradesmen's bills, and--yes, it must be done,--I will advance something
to my day-laborers."
Malchen and Salchen were astonished, never in their lives had they
heard father talk like that; but they were still more astonished when
father went on to say, "And let me tell you one thing, you must be
very civil to the Herr Pastor and the Frau Pastorin,--good heavens,
yes! Mother won't do it--Haeuning, what trouble you make me! The
parsonage people can do us a great deal of good, or a great deal of
harm. Ah, what can not a proprietor and a pastor accomplish, if they
stand faithfully by each other, in these bad times! We must send them a
friendly invitation; by and by, when it is quiet again, we can drop the
intercourse, if it does not suit us."
And sure enough! After a few days Pastor Gottlieb received a note
containing the compliments of the Herr and the Frau Pomuchelskopp--for
old Haeuning had given in on this point--to the Herr Pastor and the Frau
Pastorin, and requesting the honor of their company to dinner. The man
waited for an answer. Braesig happened to be there, having come over to
look after things a little. When Gottlieb read the invitation, he stood
there, looking as if he had received a summons to the Ecclesiastical
Consistory, to answer to charges of false doctrine, or immoral conduct.
"What?" he exclaimed, "an invitation from our proprietor? Where is
Lining? Lining!" he called, out at the door. Lining came, read the
letter, and looked at Gottlieb, who stood before her without a word,
then she looked at Braesig, who sat in the sofa-corner, grinning like a
Whitsun ox. "Well," she said at last, "we cannot go, of course?"
"Dear wife," said Pastor Gottlieb,--he always called her "dear wife,"
when he wished to throw the weight of his clerical dignity into the
balance, at other times he said merely "Lining,"--"dear wife, you
should not refuse the hand that your brother offers."
"Gottlieb," said Lining, "this is not a hand, it is a dinner, and the
brother is Pomuchelskopp. Am I not right, Uncle Braesig?" Braesig said
nothing, he only grinned, he sat there like Moses' David, when he had
staked a louis-d'or, and waited to see whether clerical dignity, or
good, sound common sense would turn the scale.
"Dear wife," continued Gottlieb, "it is written, 'Let not the sun
go down upon your wrath,' and 'If thy brother smite thee on one
cheek,'----"
"Gottlieb, that does not apply to this affair; we have no wrath against
him, and as for smiting on the cheek, I am of Braesig's opinion. God
forgive me the sin! it may have been different in old times, but if it
were the fashion now, there would be a great deal of grumbling in the
world, for we should all go about with swollen cheeks."
"But, dear wife----"
"Gottlieb, you know I never interfere in your clerical affairs; but a
dinner is a worldly affair, and one at the Pomuchelskopps is more than
worldly. And then, you quite forget, we have company. Isn't Uncle
Braesig here? And wouldn't you rather dine here to-day, with Uncle
Braesig, on pea soup and pigs' ears than at Pomuchelskopp's grand
dinner? And they have not invited Mining either," she added, as Mining
entered the room, "and they know that Mining lives with us."
This decided Gottlieb, he liked pea soup and was particularly fond of
pigs' ears; and I must say that he thought highly of Uncle Braesig, who
had helped him so much and stood by him so faithfully, and one of his
greatest clerical grievances was that such a man as Uncle Braesig, whose
life was so honest and honorable, had yet so little the outward
demeanour of a Christian and churchman. So he declined Pomuchelskopp's
invitation, but when they had sat down to their pea soup, and Braesig
came out recklessly with the information that he was really a member of
the Rahnstadt Reformverein, Pastor Gottlieb sprang to his feet,
regardless of the pigs'-ears, and delivered a regular sermon against
the Reformverein. Lining pulled him by the coat, now and then, telling
him that his soup would be cold; but Gottlieb was not to be diverted:
"Yes," he cried, "the vengeance of God has come upon the world; but woe
to the men whom he chooses as the instruments of his vengeance!"
Since they were not in church Braesig ventured to interrupt him,
inquiring whom the Lord had chosen for the purpose.
"That is in the hand of the Lord!" cried Gottlieb. "He may choose me,
he may choose Lining, he may choose you."
"He will not choose Lining and me," said Braesig, wiping his mouth,
"Lining fed the poor, in the year '47, and I have, for several weeks,
declared for equality and fraternity in the Reformverein; I am no
avenger, I wouldn't harm any man; but if I could get hold of Zamel
Pomuchelskopp, then----"
Gottlieb was too excited to listen longer, and went on with his
discourse: "Oh, the devil is going about the world like a roaring lion,
and every speaker's stand, in these cursed Reformvereins, is an altar,
on which sacrifice is offered to him; but I will oppose to this altar
another; in the House of God I will preach against this sacrificing to
devils, against these Reformvereins, against those false gods and their
altars!"
With that, he resumed his seat, and ate, hastily, a couple of spoonfuls
of pea-soup. Braesig left him in quiet for a while; but when he saw that
the young clergyman had come back to worldly affairs sufficiently to
attack the pigs' ears, he said, "Herr Pastor, you are right in one
point, the speaker's stand at Rahnstadt looks uncommonly like a devil's
altar, that is to say, a cooling-vat from a distillery; but I can't say
that sacrifices are offered to him upon it, unless Wimmersdorf the
tailor does it, or Kurz, or your respected father, for he always makes
the longest speeches,--no, don't interrupt me!--I was only going to
say, so far as I am acquainted with the devil, and that is now a good
many years, he would not meddle with the Rahnstadt Reformverein, for he
is not so stupid."
"Gottlieb," said Lining, "you know I never interfere with your clerical
affairs, but you would surely not bring such a worldly matter as the
Reformverein into the pulpit?"
Yes, he would, Gottlieb said.
"Well, then, go ahead!" said Braesig, "but what people say, that of all
men the pastors understand their business the best, is not true, for,
instead of preaching in the people who don't go to church, you will
preach out those who do go."
And Uncle Braesig proved to be in the right, for when Gottlieb, one
Sunday, preached with terrible zeal against the new times--of which, by
the way, he understood about as much as if he had come into the world
yesterday,--and against the Reformverein, and, the next Sunday, was
going on with the business, only Lining and Mining and the sexton were
there to hear him, for a few old spinning women, who sat here and
there, were not to be reckoned in the audience, since they did not come
on account of the sermon, but only for the soup, which they got on
Sunday noons at the parsonage. So he went home, with his sermon and his
womenkind, the old women followed with their soup-kettles, the sexton
locked up the church, and Gottlieb felt like a soldier, who in his zeal
has thrust his sword into the thick buckler of his enemy, and stands
there without defence.
So the times were bad, all over the country, every one's hand was
against his neighbor, the world was turned round, those who had
something and had been boasters were become humble, those who had been
counted wise were now thought foolish, and fools grew into wise men
over night; the distinguished were of no account, noble men gave up
their nobility, and day-laborers were called "Herr."
But two things ran like a thread through all this confusion of
cowardice and insolence, which had power to comfort and cheer. One
thread was gay-colored, and when one came near enough, and could free
himself from the common anxiety and the common greediness, he could
find much amusement in it, that was the ludicrous side of human nature,
which turned up so clearly; the other thread was rose-colored, and upon
it hung everything with which one human being could make others happy,
pity and compassion, sound common sense and reason, honest labor and
self-denial, and this thread was love, pure human love, which is woven
through the dull gray web of selfishness by helpful hands, as a token
from God, that shall remain in the worst of times; and who knows but
this stripe may grow broader and broader till the whole gray web turn
rosy red, for this thread,--thank God!--is never cut off.