The village of Fashwitz is an experiment made at the expense of the
government. Originally the estate had been, like the whole larger part
of the island, the property of a noble family, and had lapsed back into
the possession of the crown when that family had become extinct. The
government, desirous to obtain a nucleus of small landowners or
independent farmers, which are here almost entirely wanting, had
established here and on other estates genuine farmers' colonies, by
laying them out in small parcels and selling these to all who chose to
buy for merely nominal prices. The community at Fashwitz had a church
built for them, and a minister was sent there; it was surely not the
fault of the government if the good people of Fashwitz did not prosper.
It seemed, however, highly desirable that they should avail themselves
of their other privileges and prerogatives a little more zealously than
they seemed to do of the opportunity to obtain spiritual food on
Sundays. For when Oswald obtained admittance to the church through a
side-door--the great door was locked--he found that the devout
listeners consisted of a few Sunday-school children, who were there _ex
officio_, a handful of old women, faithful to the old traditions of
their youth, and the families of some landowners in the neighborhood
who tried to set their tenants and dependents a good example. The
interior of the church formed a large, well-lighted hall, with a
flat ceiling, in which pulpit, altar, and benches were discreetly
arranged--everything bran new, perfectly practical, and very
unattractive. There were no small stained window-panes, no pictures on
the walls or over the altar, no angels of wood or bronze blowing their
trumpets with swelling cheeks, no votive tablets, no faded wreaths, in
fine, none of those means by which the Catholic, to whom the church is
but the antechamber to heaven, gives expression to his longings for a
higher life. The only poetical feature in the church were the shadows
cast by the linden-trees before the windows, which waved to and fro on
the bright wall opposite, and the broad bands of light which fell
diagonally across the building, and formed so many golden bridges on
which the thoughts could escape from the unattractive interior to the
summer morning, which, outside, lay warm and fragrant on meadows,
fields, and forests. No one in the audience, however, seemed to stand
in need of such a road, or to find it at all practicable, except,
perhaps, a pretty little girl about ten years old, with long golden
curls, who seemed to have a strong longing after the bright flowers and
white butterflies in the garden of her father, a stout old gentleman
nodding devoutly by her side, and who, on that account, was frequently
admonished by her governess to sit still and behave herself properly.
The majority of the people looked as if they had left their minds
carefully at home, and a few bore the infliction with the resignation
of well-bred men.
And, indeed, it would have been strange if the congregation could have
been edified by such a sermon and such a minister. Oswald, who had
found a seat opposite the pulpit, and behind the pew of the great
nobleman, discovered at the first glance at the preacher, and after a
few words of his sermon, that there was about as much sympathy between
the minister and the congregation as between a learned missionary and a
tribe of good-natured savages. The minister, a small, lean man of about
forty, with his dried-up, withered face, seemed to feel this himself
very clearly, for he had scarcely seen Oswald when he began to address
himself to him almost exclusively, as the only one capable of
appreciating the precious pearls which an unwise government forced him
to cast here before the swine.
"Oh, my devout brethren," he exclaimed, fixing his eyes through his
spectacles upon Oswald, who tried to hide as well as he could behind
the golden curls of the little girl, "Oh, my devout hearers, you see
how weak our reason is in face of these momentous questions. And yet,
and yet, oh, much beloved, there are misguided brethren and sisters who
still rely on the dim rushlight of reason long after the sun has risen
for them also. Alas! this little stump of a farthing candle seems to
them bright enough in the days of feasting, frolicking, and jubileeing,
but not so in the days of old age with its solemn thoughts and grave
anxieties. Therefore, abandon your faith in reason, and hold fast on
faith! Abandon your idle trust in sound common-sense, as you call it!
Oh, my devout hearers, this sound common-sense is a sick, very sick
sense, is a device of the devil's, and a will-o'-the-wisp which leads
you inevitably into the pool of perdition."
Oswald was strangely, but by no means pleasantly affected by this
sermon, which continued for half an hour more, richly larded with
quotations from Holy Writ. He was deeply impressed with the contrast
between the simple, childlike submission of the old woman to the great,
eternal laws of nature, and her modest but solemn way of stating them,
and the arrogant self-assurance with which the man in the pulpit
decided on the most solemn questions, and condemned every sound
sentiment and natural impulse of our heart as empty show and deceitful
delusion. The unadorned wisdom of the matron was fresh and fragrant,
like a flower on the heath; the boastful knowledge of the preacher,
like a plant grown in the hot, oppressive air of a greenhouse,
luxuriant in leaves and stalk, but without sap and strength and
flowers. Oswald was glad when the learned preacher came at last to say
amen! after having once more denounced the morality and anathematized
the souls of all who thought differently from himself.
"That is most assuredly not so," he said to himself, as he tried on
tiptoe to reach the little side-door by which he had come in. And when,
outside, the blue sky once more rose high above him, and the fragrance
of the linden greeted him, he breathed deeply, like one who comes from
the hot, stifling atmosphere of a sick-room into the balsamic air of a
garden.
"I shall not make this man's acquaintance if I can help it," he
continued his monologue, making his way down the little hill on which
the church stood, and past several grand carriages, which had in the
mean while overtaken him, till he reached the village. "What have I in
common with him? His thoughts are not my thoughts, and his language is
not my language. We would never understand each other. I do not believe
in that vague humanity, which is on good terms with everybody and
rejects no one; nor do I believe in that philosophy of the beetles,
which hum around all flowers in the hope of finding somewhere the
hidden treasure of sweet honey. The wise merchant sails past the coast
which is too poor for barter, and the great words, 'Who is not with me
is against me,' fell from the same holy lips which taught that love is
the first duty of man."
Oswald had, as was his wont, given way to his thoughts with such utter
forgetfulness of everything around him, that he wandered for some time
about in the unknown village, where houses and barns and stables, walls
and gardens, lay in inextricable confusion by each other, and presented
to the stranger a perfect labyrinth. He was just leaving a narrow alley
by the side of a large house, in order to get into a wider street, when
the minister met him, coming from church. He could not possibly avoid
the meeting, and his attempt to pass by with a polite bow was a total
failure, for the minister had no sooner seen him than he stepped
literally in his way and addressed him at once with these words:
"Ah! I surely have the pleasure and the honor to see before me Doctor
Stein? How kind in you to come and see me! To tell the truth, I have
expected you for several days. When I was last at Grenwitz, to pay my
respects to the baroness, I learned, to my regret, that you were out on
a walk with your two pupils; otherwise I should not have denied myself
the pleasure of calling on you at your room. My wife will be delighted
to welcome you at our humble home. Pray, this way! Pray come without
ceremony!"
"No escaping this," thought Oswald, and for the sake of politeness,
that ape of humanity, he allowed himself to be forced to accept a
hospitality which he had determined, only a minute ago, to decline
under all circumstances!
"Gustava! Gusty! Gusty!" called the minister, as he entered. The
desired lady was, however, not willing to give up the vantage-ground of
her position behind the curtained window in the kitchen-door, from
which she reconnoitred in security the appearance of the stranger and
the purpose of his visit. The minister, therefore, showed the way into
his study, where he begged Oswald to allow him to take off his gown,
and then to inform his Gustava of the honor that his house was
receiving.
The reverend gentleman's study was a large room with two windows; a few
book-shelves, some pictures of saints on the wall, a hard sofa covered
with black horse-hair, a round centre-table littered with books, and a
desk with a chair, which turned on a screw, near the window, formed the
simple furniture; the atmosphere was heavy with tobacco-smoke. Oswald
was so oppressed by this perfume that he had to open a window, and in
doing this he felt a strong temptation to jump from the low casement
upon the street and to make his escape.
The attempt to seek safety in flight was, however, defeated by the
return of his host. The reverend gentleman appeared now in a summer
costume of black shining material. He begged Oswald to remain a few
minutes in his "cell," since "Gustava was ruling still in the kitchen."
Oswald, who had abandoned all hope of escape, had not even the heart to
decline an invitation to dinner.
"You will find, it is true, nothing but the _paternum mensa tenui
salinum_, the ancestral furniture on the simple table," said the
minister, desirous to show his guest that he had not forgotten his
Latin; "but you know: _vivitur parvo bene_: we can live well upon a
little. May I offer you a cigar till dinner is ready?"
Oswald declined, as he did not smoke.
"Oh! an excellent habit! a classic habit!" said the minister, laughing
at his own wit; "the ancients did not smoke, and Goethe, whom a
frivolous but witty author calls 'the great pagan,' was a bitter enemy
to pipes and cigars. You permit me to remain faithful to my habit of
smoking a light cigar after my sermon?"
"I pray you will do so."
"Don't you find"--puff! puff!--"that smoking"--puff! puff!--"is a
thoroughly Germanic, I might almost say, a thoroughly Christo-Germanic
element?" said the minister, who was determined to show his cleverness.
"You would certainly furnish a new weapon to the scoffers at our
religion, if you really thought so," said Oswald, dryly.
"How so, my dear sir?"
"Said scoffers might reply that to show them only smoke, and no fire,
was essentially a Germanic, a Christo-Germanic characteristic."
The minister cast at Oswald a quick, watchful glance over his glasses,
as if he would have liked to see how far he might safely trust his
guest. But as he considered it unsuitable for a man of classic tastes
not to enter at once into a joke, even when it bordered very closely
upon a frivolity, he replied with a bitter-sweet smile: "Not so bad!
not so bad! But who is safe against scoffers? To be sure we might
reply: _Ex fumo lucem! ex fumo lucem!_ light out of smoke! But let us
sit down, dear friend, let us sit down! How is our dear good baron, and
how is the excellent baroness? Ah! you are a happy man, my dear sir, to
live in such a house, with such admirable people, who unite to native
nobility the nobility of the soul--especially the baroness, a pious and
high-bred lady who wants to know everything _ex fundamento_. She is now
reading Schleiermacher's discourses on religion." ...
"Do you think she really understands them?" observed Oswald.
The minister looked again at Oswald with that peculiar glance over his
glasses, as if he must take a close look at the man who had the courage
so openly to utter a view which he entertained himself, but only in
greatest secrecy. He contented himself, however, with a gesture, he
drew down the corners of his mouth, he shrugged his shoulders and
raised his eyebrows--a gesture which might mean either "All vanity,
dear friend!" or "The capacities of that good lady are beyond all
measure!"
"You will, of course, miss Grunwald; especially your intimacy with a
man of such vast erudition as Professor Berger. But I am in the same
sad condition. I also can say: _Barbarus hic ego sum, quia nulli
intelligor._ I pass here for an original, because no one understands
me. Our great landowners are certainly excellent, worthy men, who fear
God and serve the king; but, between us be it said, culture they have
not; I mean, of course, scientific culture. Ah, if these gentlemen
could have enjoyed in their youth the advantages of a genuine rational
education, like young Malte ..."
"You are too kind, sir, although only the smallest part of that
compliment would belong to me. I only wished the _ratio_ would show
itself for once in Master Malte, for until now he appears to me a most
irrational small quantity."
"Is it possible you are disappointed in the young baron?" said the
minister, in a tone as if he heard something entirely incredible and
unexpected. "Ah! I understand, I understand. Certainly nature has
endowed Bruno in many respects far more richly, although he is not very
accessible to the great truths of our religion, as I have noticed when
I was honored with the duty to prepare the two young gentlemen for
their confirmation. But _non omnia possumus omnes--omnes_," repeated
the minister, not knowing exactly how to continue. "Yes, as I said, but
then Malte is heir to a magnificent estate."
"All the more desirable, it seems to me, that he should be a man in the
full sense of the word. But is the Grenwitz estate really so
magnificent?"
"Why, my dear friend," exclaimed the minister, in a tone of gentle
reproach that Oswald should display such deplorable ignorance in such
all-important matters, "is it magnificent? There are in this
neighborhood alone five, no--with Stantow and Baerwalde, which to be
sure are not entailed, there are seven large estates belonging to it.
And in other parts of the island--let me see--there are one, two, three
more. That is a capital of at least a million and a half. A million and
a half!" he repeated, as if his mind could not part easily with such a
lofty conception.
"And the estate is entailed?"
"Why, certainly. With the exception, of course, of two of the finest
estates, which the last baron, the cousin of the present baron,
inherited from his mother, and which he tied up in a very peculiar
manner. Just imagine, my dear friend: the late baron, who, between us
be it said, was a prodigiously wild and dissipated man, left these two
estates to the son of one of his mistresses?"
"But did you not just now count the two estates as part of the family
fortune?"
"Well, between us we can do so, I think," said the minister, in a low
voice, coming up closely to Oswald. "Nobody knows, you see, where the
boy is, nay, whether he is at all alive, nay, they do not even know if
it is a boy or a girl."
"Why, that is a curious story," said Oswald, laughing.
"A very curious story," said the reverend gentleman, "a ridiculous
story, you might say. Just think: Baron Harald,--they have all of them
odd names in the family--that wild fellow, who ought to have lived
somewhere in the middle ages, fell in love with a poor girl, the
daughter of a mechanic, a case which no doubt was of frequent
occurrence in his life, but never had such disastrous consequences. He
carried her off, almost by force, and brought her here to his chateau.
Half a year later she escapes in the middle of the night. No one knows
to this day whether she ran away to live in obscurity, or to hide her
shame in one of our dark moors. The baron was furious, beside himself.
He searched through the whole island. Then, in order to drown his grief
and his remorse, he drank and gambled and led a life even worse than
before, so that he died in delirium a few weeks later. When they open
his testament, they find that he has left the income derived from those
two superb estates to the mother, and the estates themselves to the
child of his lady-love, whether it be a girl or a boy, provided only it
be born within a given period. He had evidently had a fit of penitence
before dying, or, it may be, it was a mere caprice. What do you say to
that?"
"The story certainly is rather tragic than comic," said Oswald; "and
have they never found any trace of the mother or her child?"
"Never! and yet they publish every year--it is a terrible disgrace, and
I pity the poor baroness with all my heart--an advertisement in all the
papers of the province, inviting the lost one to come forward and claim
her rights."
"How long has that being going on?"
"Some twenty years or more."
"Then it is hardly probable that the poor woman is still alive?"
"Certainly not; and nobody thinks of it," laughed the minister. "They
would make a pretty face at Grenwitz, if all of a sudden a young
vagabond should present himself there, claiming to be the most obedient
nephew of the baron, and demand the two farms, with the interest for
twenty years! It would not suit the baroness, I can tell you; for she
has not a farthing of her own, and, as the whole estate is entailed,
she and her daughter would, after the baron's death, be as poor as she
was before she married."
"You seem to be a great advocate of entails?"
"Certainly, I am. I consider it fortunate that such large estates
cannot be parcelled away by subdivision, and that thus an aristocracy
of wealthy landowners is formed, which serves as a kind of ballast for
the ship of state in times of peril--which God, I pray, may long avert
from our beloved land."
"Well," said Oswald, "there are two sides to that question, as to most
questions."
"Of course, I know," said the obliging minister. "But I, for my part, I
have too long enjoyed the honor and the happiness of being intimate
with wealthy families, noble in the true sense of the word, not to be a
warm adherent of the aristocracy of the land. Besides which, I have had
too many sad experiences of the fatal effect which large property often
has upon the minds of plebeians, to use the historic expression; I mean
the vanity, pride, and worldliness which it begets."
"I am sorry to hear such things of my friends."
"Of your friends?" asked the minister in astonishment.
"Yes, of my friends. For, without any purpose of mine, and often
without, exactly knowing why, I have always found myself on the
plebeian side, whenever in history the conflict between patricians and
plebeians has become marked. I was a sworn adherent of the Gracchi and
other Roman demagogues; I fought with the Independents against the
Cavaliers, and I confess that even in the terrible peasants' wars I
felt more sympathy for the poor oppressed serfs, whom brutal treatment
had brutalized, than for the high-mighty, all-powerful barons and
counts, who were not a whit less brutal for all their splendor and
power."
The minister listened to these words with a smile of incredulity, as if
he were listening to the rhodomontades of goslings who assume the air
of accomplished roues.
"Very good! very good!" he said "You clever people are fond of
paradoxes. You bring that home with you from the aesthetic teas in the
great city, and you wish not to get out of practice, although nobody
may listen to you but a poor country parson."
"I assure you, sir----"
"Never mind, never mind. But when you have lived five years among the
rustics-- Do you believe it, I have never been able to induce these
people even to buy a bell for the church, although they are bound by
law to provide for the house of God? But when they are called upon to
provide for a merry-making, or to carry out some worldly purpose, they
have always an abundance of money."
"Well," said Oswald, "the nobles of this neighborhood are not exactly
famous for their repugnance to merry-making, as you call it."
"The nobles? My dear sir, that is a very different thing. Their device
is and must be: Live and let live! But, you know, the same thing does
not suit all."
"And many things are not suitable for anybody," added Oswald.
"Ah, here comes my Gustava," cried the minister, glad to be able to
break off a conversation which he liked less and less every moment.
The minister's wife, who just then came into the room, was a lady of
about forty, with sandy hair, very light blue eyes, and a face which,
at that moment, was rather red from the kitchen-fire and the hurry
in which she had dressed; ordinarily she looked pale, faded, and
old-maidish. She wore a dress of yellow raw silk, with a gold watch in
the belt, and a cap with yellow ribbons, so that on the whole she made
upon Oswald the impression of an elderly, unhealthy canary-bird, hung
up in a room which looks towards the north. She, too, could hardly find
words--and yet they came in crowds--to express her joy at seeing the
friend of the great house under her lowly roof--evidently a stereotype
phrase common to husband and wife. She felt so grateful for the visit,
as her poor man had no well-educated neighbor at all, and now, she
knew, the want was at once supplied by Oswald's arrival.
"My poor Jager"--that was the husband's name--"my poor Jager will
become a hypochondriac here," she exclaimed, fixing her watery blue
eyes with great tenderness upon the object of her apprehensions. "I do
what may be in my feeble power to make him miss the society of clever
and learned men as little as possible, but a poor ignorant woman cannot
do much in that direction."
"You will compel me to contradict you," said Oswald, in whom the sense
of the humorous had been getting the better of the disgust with which
the hypocrisy of the worthy couple had at first filled him. "I shall
insist upon it that ignorance and Mrs. Jager have never yet met, much
less can they ever have made acquaintance with each other."
"You are very kind; I am sure you are too kind," said the delighted
lady. "I cannot deny that I have all my life endeavored to relieve
myself, for one, of the popular reproach that women are unfit for the
sphere of highest----"
"Dinner's ready!" cried the parlor-maid in at the door.
"Now you see; that is the way our daily life is always asserting its
rights as soon as we try to rise a little higher," said the dweller in
the spheres of highest cultivation. Oswald offered her politely his
arm, and the minister laid his cigar carefully aside, so that he might
easily find it again after dinner.