Winter had come and gone. A bleak day in March. Wind, sleet, a drab sky.
In a little shop in Beckerstrasse, in Hamburg, a young man, with pale
cheeks and light brown hair and narrowed eyes, was seated before a
little table heaped with bills, invoices, and dunning letters. Some of
these reminders of indebtedness, were unfolded before him, others were
on a spindle, and still others were unopened. Why open letters when one
knows their contents? With hands stuck in his trousers’ pockets, his
legs extended under the table, the pale young man looked forlorn. He
seemed at once reckless and bewildered, sorrowful and carefree. There
was mist in his eyes. The postman had just handed him a letter from his
father. Not a line from his mother. “How did it all happen?”—was the
import of his father’s letter. How did it all happen? Figures had always
been the bane of Albert’s existence and to answer this question one must
deal with figures. A bitter smile suddenly appeared on his sensitive
lips, and his eyes narrowed still more—mere fine lines of indefinable
color. How did it all happen? A memory from his school days flitted
across his brain and his smile was bitter no longer. “When you grow up,”
his mathematics teacher had told him, “you’ll have to have some one else
to count your money for you, or you won’t have any.” And striking him
with a lead-edged ruler the teacher had made the announcement emphatic.
The young man threw his head back and laughed as he remembered the
incident. Soon he forgot his father’s letter and that vexing question,
forgot the bills and invoices, and his mind lingered upon his early
school days. He had always hated those school days, but now there was a
yearning in his heart for the teachers and text-books and for—yes, even
for the lead-edged ruler and gnarled stick. What if some stupid monk had
struck him with a ruler or cane? Those were happy days, when one was not
worried about paying bills and about letters that demanded how it had
happened! He sighed deeply and stretched his arms yawningly upward.
“Those were happy days,” he repeated to himself.
His eyes dropped upon his father’s letters before him. He became
irritable and vexed. He had thrashed it out with his uncle and now his
father had started all over again. “What will become of you, Albert?”
his father had added. “You are already in your twenty-second year and
have failed in everything—in everything. You have not only brought ruin
upon yourself but also upon your poor old father. For I am getting old,
Albert, and instead of my supporting you, you should take care of me.
And at my age I am now obliged to leave here and start over again at
some other town. I can read between the lines of your uncle’s letter
that your conduct in other respects has not been irreproachable.”
He pushed the letter away from himself. He was growing angry with his
father, with his mother, with his uncle. Why had they pressed business
upon him? They had known he had no taste for business. What right had
they now to complain?
He rose from his seat and paced the floor. He did not blame himself any
longer.
He locked the door. With the door locked he felt secure from disturbers.
Then, taking out a few sheets from his breast pocket began to scan an
uncompleted poem. Presently he replaced the sheets, uninvited thoughts
intruded upon him. His erstwhile cynical look faded. His eyes closed and
he heaved a sigh. The thought of his family moving away from Gunsdorf
pained him. His family had lived in Gunsdorf all their lives, and now
they must move to a little village. He blamed Nature for all their
misery. Who knows, he mused, Kant may be right. There was no guiding
Providence. How could there be with so many rascals inheriting the
earth? What a stupid world to believe in a guiding Providence! Or was
Providence stupid?——
The door rattled, the lock was tormented, but he hated to turn around to
see who the disturber was. Everything around him was so misguided, he
mused.
“Open the door!”
It was the voice of that magpie, Aaron Hirsch. He was fond of Aaron and
jumped up to open the door.
“You can’t do business with the door locked,” laughed Aaron.
“Just as much as with the door open,” Albert replied in a challenging
voice.
Aaron laughed good naturedly, unbuttoning his coat, heaved a long drawn
sigh, and asked, “How is business?”
“An ingenious question? Oh, business is wonderful—simply
wonderful—can’t you see? I have sold every bit of my stock——”
Aaron laughed.
“What’s the good word from Uncle Leopold?——”
“I am coming on no mission from him,” Aaron rejoined, shrugging his
shoulders as if the mere thought of it was foreign to him.
“Aaron Hirsch, for this falsehood you’ll have to fast two Mondays and
two Thursdays, and at that I am sure on the Day of Judgment, when you’ll
begin to tell all the good deeds you had done in this world, a seraph
will rush in, clapping his wings, and will halt your entering through
the gates of heaven because you had lied to a poor innocent earthly
poet.”
“You are too good to hold this against me,” laughed Aaron.
“No, I won’t. No sooner will that denouncing seraph have spoken when I
will gallop in on a fiery steed and say, ‘Lord of Hosts, poor Aaron only
lied because he wished to preserve a wife and seven children from
starvation.’ Whereupon the Lord of Hosts will brush the seraph aside and
say, ‘Let him in. It’s no sin to lie for one’s wife and seven children,’
and will praise you before the sun, the moon and all the shining stars,
and will appoint you an angel of the First Grade, with the right to wear
wings of the color of the Swiss Guards.”
Aaron “hi-hi’d,” and “ha-ha’d” and “ho-ho’d” and ended with a shriek of
uncontrollable laughter.
“If you’ll permit me to light my pipe,” Hirsch said a moment later, as
he stuck the bowl of his pipe into the mouth of his leather pouch, “I’ll
tell you the truth, though I have given my word to your uncle not to
tell you this. But remember, your uncle must not know that I told you
or——”
“I understand, your wife and seven children—”
“Well, sir,” continued Hirsch, “your esteemed uncle has instructed me to
find out the exact amount of your indebtedness and how much you owe for
your board and lodging. And he wants you to come and see him tomorrow
before noon—but not a word of what I told you about paying your debts.”