THE 17th passed so quietly that hopes of a peaceable outcome of the
fateful conflict began to awake. My own recollections confirm this.
People believed so positively that the difficulty would be adjusted,
that in the forenoon of the 18th my mother sent my eldest sister Martha
to her drawing-lesson, which was given at General Baeyer’s, in the
Friedrichstrasse.
Ludo and I went to school, and when it was over the many joyful faces in
the street confirmed what we had heard during the school hours.
The king had granted the Constitution and the “freedom of the press.”
Crowds were collected in front of the placards which announced this
fact, but there was no need to force our way through; their contents
were read aloud at every corner and fountain.
One passer-by repeated it to another, and friend shouted to friend
across the street. “Have you heard the news?” was the almost invariable
question when people accosted one another, and at least one “Thank God!”
was contained in every conversation. Two or three older acquaintances
whom we met charged us, in all haste, to tell our mother; but she had
heard it already, and her joy was so great that she forgot to scold us
for staying away so long. Fraulein Lamperi, on the contrary, who dined
with us, wept. She was convinced that the unfortunate king had been
forced into something which would bring ruin both to him and his
subjects. “His poor Majesty!” she sobbed in the midst of our joy.
Our mother loved the king too, but she was a daughter of the free
Netherlands; two of her brothers and sisters lived in England; and
the friends she most valued, whom she knew to be warmly and faithfully
attached to the house of Hohenzollern, thought it high time that the
Prussian people attained the majority to which that day had brought
them. Moreover, her active mind knew no rest till it had won a clear
insight into questions concerning the times and herself. So she had
reached the conviction that no peace between king and people could be
expected unless a constitution was granted. In Parliament she would have
sat on the right, but that her adopted country should have a Parliament
filled her with joyful pride.
Ludo and I were very gay. It was Saturday, and towards evening we
were going to a children’s ball given by Privy-Councillor Romberg--the
specialist for nervous diseases--for his daughter Marie, for which new
blue jackets had been made.
We were eagerly expecting them, and about three o’clock the tailor came.
Our mother was present when he tried them on, and when she remarked
that now all was well, the man shook his head, and declared that the
concessions of the forenoon had had no other object than to befool the
people; that would appear before long.
While I write, it seems as if I saw again that poor little bearer of
the first evil tidings, and heard once more the first shots which
interrupted his prophecy with eloquent confirmation.
Our mother turned pale.
The tailor folded up his cloth and hurried away. What did his words
mean, and what was the firing outside?
We strained our ears to listen. The noise seemed to grow louder and come
nearer; and, just as our mother cried, “For Heaven’s sake, Martha!”
the cook burst into the room, exclaiming, “The row began in the
Schlossplatz!”
Fraulein Lamperi shrieked, seized her bonnet and cloak, and the
pompadour which she took with her everywhere, to hurry home as fast as
she could.
Our mother could think only of Martha. She had dined at the Baeyers’ and
was now perhaps on the way home. Somebody must be sent to meet her. But
of what use would be the escort of a maid; and Kurschner was gone, and
the porter not to be found!
The cook was sent in one direction, the chambermaid in another, to seek
a male escort for Martha.
And then there was Frau Lieutenant Beyer, our neighbour in the house,
whose husband was on the general staff, asking: “How is it possible?
Everything was granted! What can have happened?”
The answer was a rattle of musketry. We leaned out of the window, from
which we could see as far as Potsdamstrasse. What a rush there was
towards the gate! Three or four men dashed down the middle of the quiet
street. The tall, bearded fellow at the head we knew well. It was the
upholsterer Specht, who had often put up curtains and done similar work
for us, a good and capable workman.
But what a change! Instead of a neat little hammer, he was flourishing
an axe, and he and his companions looked as furious as if they were
going to revenge some terrible injury.
He caught sight of us, and I remember distinctly the whites of his
rolling eyes as he raised his axe higher, and shouted hoarsely, and as
if the threat was meant for us:
“They shall get it!”
Our mother and Frau Beyer had seen and heard him too, and the firing in
the direction of which the upholsterer and his companions were running
was very near.
The fight must already be raging in Leipzigerstrasse.
At last the porter came back and announced that barricades had been
built at the corner of Mauer-and Friedrichstrasse, and that a violent
conflict had broken out there and in other places between the soldiers
and the citizens. And our Martha was in Friedrichstrasse, and did not
come. We lived beyond the gate, and it was not to be expected that
fighting would break out in our neighbourhood; but back of our gardens,
in the vicinity of the Potsdam railway station, the beating of drums
was heard. The firing, however, which became more and more violent,
was louder than any other noise; and when we saw our mother wild with
anxiety, we, too, began to be alarmed for our dear, sweet Martha.
It was already dark, and still we waited in vain.
At last some one rang. Our mother hurried to the door--a thing she never
did.
When we, too, ran into the hall, she had her arms around the child who
had incurred such danger, and we little ones kissed her also, and Martha
looked especially pretty in her happy astonishment at such a reception.
She, too, had been anxious enough while good Heinrich, General Maeyer’s
servant, who had been his faithful comrade in arms from 1813 to 1815,
brought her home through all sorts of by-ways. But they had been obliged
in various places to pass near where the fighting was going on, and the
tender-hearted seventeen-year-old girl had seen such terrible things
that she burst into tears as she described them.
For us the worst anxiety was over, and our mother recovered her
composure. It was perhaps advisable for her, a defenceless widow, to
leave the city, which might on the morrow be given over to the unbridled
will of insurgents or of soldiers intoxicated with victory. So she
determined to make all preparations for going with us to our grandmother
in Dresden.
Meanwhile the fighting in the streets seemed to have increased in
certain places to a battle, for the crash of the artillery grapeshot
was constantly intermingled with the crackling of the infantry fire, and
through it all the bells were sounding the tocsin, a wailing, warning
sound, which stirred the inmost heart.
It was a fearful din, rattling and thundering and ringing, while the sky
emulated the bloodsoaked earth and glowed in fiery red. It was said that
the royal iron foundry was in flames.
At last the hour of bedtime came, and I still remember how our mother
told us to pray for the king and those poor people who, in order to
attain something we could not understand, were in such great peril.