CHAPTER XXXVI

May was beautiful, June more beautiful, and after Effi had happily

overcome the first painful feeling aroused in her by Rollo's arrival,

she was full of joy at having the faithful dog about her again.

Roswitha was praised and old von Briest launched forth into words of

recognition for Innstetten, who, he said, was a cavalier, never petty,

but always stout-hearted. "What a pity that the stupid affair had to

come between them! As a matter of fact, they were a model couple." The

only one who remained calm during the welcoming scene was Rollo

himself, who either had no appreciation of time or considered the

separation as an irregularity which was now simply removed. The fact

that he had grown old also had something to do with it, no doubt. He

remained sparing with his demonstrations of affection as he had been

with his evidences of joy, during the welcoming scene. But he had

grown in fidelity, if such a thing were possible. He never left the

side of his mistress. The hunting dog he treated benevolently, but as

a being of a lower order. At night he lay on the rush mat before

Effi's door; in the morning, when breakfast was served out of doors by

the sundial, he was always quiet, always sleepy, and only when Effi

arose from the breakfast table and walked toward the hall to take her

straw hat and umbrella from the rack, did his youth return. Then,

without troubling himself about whether his strength was to be put to

a hard or easy test, he ran up the village road and back again and did

not calm down till they were out in the fields. Effi, who cared more

for fresh air than for landscape beauty, avoided the little patches of

forest and usually kept to the main road, which 'at first was bordered

with very old elms and then, where the turnpike began, with poplars.

This road led to the railway station about an hour's walk away. She

enjoyed everything, breathing in with delight the fragrance wafted to

her from the rape and clover fields, or watching the soaring of the

larks, and counting the draw-wells and troughs, to which the cattle

went to drink. She could hear a soft ringing of bells that made her

feel as though she must close her eyes and pass away in sweet

forgetfulness. Near the station, close by the turnpike, lay a road

roller. This was her daily resting place, from which she could observe

what took place on the railroad. Trains came and went and sometimes

she could see two columns of smoke which for a moment seemed to blend

into one and then separated, one going to the right, the other to the

left, till they disappeared behind the village and the grove. Rollo

sat beside her, sharing her lunch, and when he had caught the last

bite, he would run like mad along some plowed furrow, doubtless to

show his gratitude, and stop only when a pair of pheasants scared from

their nest flew up from a neighboring furrow close by him.

"How beautiful this summer is! A year ago, dear mama, I should not

have thought I could ever again be so happy," said Effi every day as

she walked with her mother around the pond or picked an early apple

from a tree and bit into it vigorously, for she had beautiful teeth.

Mrs. von Briest would stroke her hand and say: "Just wait till you are

well again, Effi, quite well, and then we shall find happiness, not

that of the past, but a new kind. Thank God, there are several kinds

of happiness. And you shall see, we shall find something for you."

"You are so good. Really I have changed your lives and made you

prematurely old."

"Oh, my dear Effi, don't speak of it. I thought the same about it,

when the change came. Now I know that our quiet is better than the

noise and loud turmoil of earlier years. If you keep on as you are we

can go away yet. When Wiesike proposed Mentone you were ill and

irritable, and because you were ill, you were right in saying what you

did about conductors and waiters. When you have steadier nerves again

you can stand that. You will no longer be offended, but will laugh at

the grand manners and the curled hair. Then the blue sea and white

sails and the rocks all overgrown with red cactus--I have never seen

them, to be sure, but that is how I imagine them. I should like to

become acquainted with them."

Thus the summer went by and the meteoric showers were also past.

During these evenings Effi had sat at her window till after midnight

and yet never grew tired of watching. "I always was a weak Christian,

but I wonder whether we ever came from up there and whether, when all

is over here, we shall return to our heavenly home, to the stars above

or further beyond. I don't know and don't care to know. I just have

the longing."

Poor Effi! She had looked up at the wonders of the sky and thought

about them too long, with the result that the night air, and the fog

rising from the pond, made her so ill she had to stay in bed again.

When Wiesike was summoned and had examined her he took Briest aside

and said: "No more hope; be prepared for an early end."

What he said was only too true, and a few days later, comparatively

early in the evening, it was not yet ten o'clock, Roswitha came down

stairs and said to Mrs. von Briest: "Most gracious Lady, her Ladyship

upstairs is very ill. She talks continually to herself in a soft voice

and sometimes it seems as though she were praying, but she says she is

not, and I don't know, it seems to me as though the end might come any

hour."

"Does she wish to speak to me?"

"She hasn't said so, but I believe she does. You know how she is; she

doesn't want to disturb you and make you anxious. But I think it would

be well."

"All right, Roswitha, I will come."

Before the clock began to strike Mrs. von Briest mounted the stairway

and entered Effi's room. Effi lay on a reclining chair near the open

window. Mrs. von Briest drew up a small black chair with three gilt

spindles in its ebony back, took Effi's hand and said: "How are you,

Effi! Roswitha says you are so feverish."

"Oh, Roswitha worries so much about everything. I could see by her

looks she thought I was dying. Well, I don't know. She thinks

everybody ought to be as much worried as she is."

"Are you so calm about dying, dear Effi?"

"Entirely calm, mama."

"Aren't you deceiving yourself? Everybody clings to life, especially

the young, and you are still so young, dear Effi."

Effi remained silent for a while. Then she said: "You know, I haven't

read much. Innstetten was often surprised at it, and he didn't like

it."

This was the first time she had mentioned Innstetten's name, and it

made a deep impression on her mother and showed clearly that the end

was come.

"But I thought," said Mrs. von Briest, "you were going to tell me

something."

"Yes, I was, because you spoke of my still being so young. Certainly I

am still young; but that makes no difference. During our happy days

Innstetten used to read aloud to me in the evening. He had very good

books, and in one of them there was a story about a man who had been

called away from a merry table. The following morning he asked how it

had been after he left. Somebody answered: 'Oh, there were all sorts

of things, but you really didn't miss anything.' You see, mama, these

words have impressed themselves upon my memory--It doesn't signify

very much if one is called away from the table a little early."

Mrs. von Briest remained silent. Effi lifted herself up a little

higher and said: "Now that I have talked to you about old times and

also about Innstetten, I must tell you something else, dear mama."

"You are getting excited, Effi."

"No, no, to tell about the burden of my heart will not excite me, it

will quiet me. And so I wanted to tell you that I am dying reconciled

to God and men, reconciled also to _him_."

"Did you cherish in your heart such great bitterness against him?

Really--pardon me, my dear Effi, for mentioning it now--really it was

you who brought down sorrow upon yourself and your husband."

Effi assented. "Yes, mama, and how sad that it should be so. But when

all the terrible things happened, and finally the scene with

Annie--you know what I mean--I turned the tables on him, mentally, if

I may use the ridiculous comparison, and came to believe seriously

that he was to blame, because he was prosaic and calculating, and

toward the end cruel. Then curses upon him crossed my lips."

"Does that trouble you now?"

"Yes. And I am anxious that he shall know how, during my days of

illness here, which have been almost my happiest, how it has become

clear to my mind that he was right in his every act. In the affair

with poor Crampas--well, after all, what else could he have done? Then

the act by which he wounded me most deeply, the teaching of my own

child to shun me, even in that he was right, hard and painful as it is

for me to admit it. Let him know that I died in this conviction. It

will comfort and console him, and may reconcile him. He has much that

is good in his nature and was as noble as anybody can be who is not

truly in love."

Mrs. von Briest saw that Effi was exhausted and seemed to be either

sleeping or about to go to sleep. She rose quietly from her chair and

went out. Hardly had she gone when Effi also got up, and sat at the

open window to breathe in the cool night air once more. The stars

glittered and not a leaf stirred in the park. But the longer she

listened the more plainly she again heard something like soft rain

falling on the plane trees. A feeling of liberation came over her.

"Rest, rest."

* * * * *

It was a month later and September was drawing to an end. The weather

was beautiful, but the foliage in the park began to show a great deal

of read and yellow and since the equinox, which had brought three

stormy days, the leaves lay scattered in every direction. In the

circular plot a slight change had been made. The sundial was gone and

in the place where it had stood there lay since yesterday a white

marble slab with nothing on it but "Effi Briest" and a cross beneath.

This had been Em's last request. "I should like to have back my old

name on my stone; I brought no honor to the other." This had been

promised her.

The marble slab had arrived and been placed in position yesterday, and

Briest and his wife were sitting in view of it, looking at it and the

heliotrope, which had been spared, and which now bordered the stone.

Rollo lay beside them with his head on his paws.

Wilke, whose spats were growing wider and wider, brought the breakfast

and the mail, and old Mr. von Briest said: "Wilke, order the little

carriage. I am going to drive across the country with my wife."

Mrs. von Briest had meanwhile poured the coffee and was looking at the

circle and its flower bed. "See, Briest, Rollo is lying by the stone

again. He is really taking it harder than we. He wont eat any more,

either."

"Well, Luise, it is the brute creature. That is just what I have

always said. We don't amount to as much as we think. But here we

always talk about instinct. In the end I think it is the best."

"Don't speak that way. When you begin to philosophize--don't take

offense--Briest, you show your incompetence. You have a good

understanding, but you can't tackle such questions."

"That's true."

"And if it is absolutely necessary to discuss questions there are

entirely different ones, Briest, and I can tell you that not a day

passes, since the poor child has been lying here, but such questions

press themselves on me."

"What questions?"

"Whether after all we are perhaps not to blame?"

"Nonsense, Luise. What do you mean?"

"Whether we ought not to have disciplined her differently. You and I

particularly, for Niemeyer is only a cipher; he leaves everything in

doubt. And then, Briest, sorry as I am--your continual use of

ambiguous expressions--and finally, and here I accuse myself too, for

I do not desire to come off innocent in this matter, I wonder if she

was not too young, perhaps?"

Rollo, who awoke at these words, shook his head gravely and Briest

said calmly: "Oh, Luise, don't--that is _too_ wide a field."

* * * * *

EXTRACTS FROM "MY CHILDHOOD YEARS" (1894)

By THEODOR FONTANE

TRANSLATED BY WILLIAM A. COOPER, A.M.

Associate Professor of German, Leland Stanford Jr. University

On one of the last days of March, in the year 1819, a chaise drove up

before the apothecary's shop at the sign of the Lion, in Neu-Ruppin,

and a young couple, who a short time before had jointly purchased the

shop, alighted from the carriage and were received by the servants of

the house. The husband was only twenty-three years of age--for people

married very young in those days, just after the war. The wife was

twenty-one. They Were my parents....

I was born there on the 30th of December that same year. With my

mother it was a matter of life and death, for which reason, whenever

she was twitted with favoring me, she was accustomed simply to reply:

"That is because I suffered most for him." In this favored position I

remained a long time, some eighteen years, till the birth of a late

child, my youngest sister, for whom I stood sponsor and whom I even

held during the christening. This was a great honor for me, but with

it went hand in hand my dethronement by this very sister. It goes

without saying that as the youngest child she straightway became the

darling of the family.

At Easter, 1819, my father took possession of the apothecary's shop in

Neu-Ruppin, which he had acquired at a most favorable price, for a

song, so to speak; at Easter, 1826, after three of my four brothers

and sisters had been born there, he disposed of the property. Whenever

this early sale of the business became a topic of conversation, it

was always characterized as disastrous for my father and the whole

family. But unjustly. The disastrous feature, which revealed itself

many years later--and fortunately even then in a bearable form, for my

papa was truly a lucky man--lay not in the particular act of the sale,

but in the character of my father, who always spent more than his

income, and would not have given up the habit, even if he had remained

in Neu-Ruppin. That he confessed to me with his peculiar frankness

many, many times, when he had grown old and I was no longer young. "I

was still half a boy when I married," he was wont to say, "and my too

early independence explains everything." Whether or not he was right,

this is not the place to say. Generally speaking, his habits were

anything but businesslike; he took his dreams of good fortune for

realities and applied himself to the cultivation of "noble passions,"

without ever stopping to think that at best he had but modest means at

his disposal. His first extravagance was a horse and carriage; then he

soon acquired a passion for gaming, and, during the seven years from

1819 to 1826, he gambled away a small fortune. The chief winner was

the lord of a neighboring manor. When, thirty years later, the son of

this lord loaned me a small sum of money, my father said to me: "Don't

hesitate to take the money; his father took ten thousand thalers from

me at dummy whist, a little at a time." Perhaps this figure was too

high, but however that may be, the sum was at all events large enough

to throw his credit and debit out of balance and to make him, among

other things, a very tardy payer of interest. Now in ordinary

circumstances, if, for example, he could have had recourse to

mortgages and the like, this would not have been, for a time at least,

a wholly unbearable situation; but unfortunately it so happened that

my father's chief creditor was his own father, who now took occasion

to give expression to his only too justified displeasure, both in

letters and in personal interviews. To make the situation even more

oppressive, these reproaches were approved, and hence made doubly

severe, by my mother, who stood wholly on her father-in-law's side. In

short, the further matters went, the more my father was placed between

two fires, and for no other reason than to extricate himself from a

position which continually injured his pride he resolved to sell the

property and business, the exceptional productiveness of which was as

well known to him as to anybody else, in spite of the fact that he was

the very opposite of a business man. After all, his whole plan proved

to be, at least in the beginning and from his point of view,

thoroughly proper and advantageous. He received for the apothecary's

shop double the original purchase price, and saw himself thereby all

at once put in a position to satisfy his creditors, who were at the

same time his accusers. And he did it, too. He paid back the sum his

father had advanced him, asked his wife, half jokingly, half

scoffingly, whether perchance she wished to invest her money "more

safely and more advantageously," and thereby achieved what for seven

years he had been longing for, namely, freedom and independence.

Relieved from all irksome tutelage, he found himself suddenly at the

point where it was "no longer necessary to take orders from anybody."

And with him that was a specially vital matter his whole life long.

From youth to old age he thirsted for that state; but as he did not

know well how to attain it, he never enjoyed his longed-for liberty

and independence for more than a few days or weeks at a time. To use

one of his favorite expressions, he was always in the "lurch," was

always financially embarrassed, and for that reason recalled to the

end of his life with special pleasure the short period, now reached,

between Easter, 1826, and Midsummer day, 1827. With him this was the

only time when the "lurch" was lacking....

During this time we lived near the Rheinsberg Gate, in a capacious

rented apartment, which included all the rooms on the main floor. So

far as home comforts are concerned, my parents were both very well

satisfied with the change; so were the other children, who found here

ample room for their games; but I could not become reconciled to it,

and have even to this day unpleasant memories of the rented residence.

There was a butcher's shop in the building, and that did not suit my

fancy. Through the long dark court ran a gutter, with blood always

standing in it, while at the end of one of the side wings a beef,

killed the night before, hung on a broad ladder leaning against the

house. Fortunately I never had to witness the preceding scenes, except

when pigs were slaughtered. Then it was sometimes unavoidable. One day

is still fresh in my memory. I was standing in the hall and gazing out

through the open back door into the court, where it just happened that

several persons were down on the ground struggling with a pig that was

squealing its last. I was paralyzed with horror. As soon as I

recovered control of myself I took to my heels, running down the

street, through the town gate, and out to the "Vineyard," a favorite

resort of the Ruppiners. But before I had finally reached that place I

sat down on the top of a hummock to rest and catch my breath. I stayed

away the whole forenoon. At dinner I was called upon to give an

account of myself. "For heaven's sake, boy, where have you been so

long?" I made a clean breast of the matter, saying that I had been put

to flight by the spectacle down in the court and that half way to the

"Vineyard" I had rested on a hummock and leaned my back against a

crumbling pillar. "Why, there you sat in perfect composure on Gallows

Hill," said my father, laughing. Feeling as though the noose were

being laid about my neck, I begged permission to leave the table.

It was also at this time that I entered the primary school, which was

nothing unusual, inasmuch as I was going on seven years of age. I was

quick to learn and made progress, but my mother considered it her duty

to help me on, now and then, especially in reading, and so every

afternoon I stood by her little sewing table and read to her all sorts

of little stories out of the _Brandenburg Children's Friend_, a good

book, but illustrated, alas, with frightful pictures. My performance

was probably quite tolerable, for the ability to read and write

well--by the way, a very important thing in life--is a sort of

inheritance in the family. But my mother was not easy to satisfy;

furthermore she acted on the assumption that recognition and praise

spoil character, a point of view which even now I do not consider

right. At the slightest mistake she brought into play the "quick hand"

always at her service. But she displayed no temper in doing it; she

was always merely proceeding in accordance with her principle,

"anything but coddling." One blow too many could never do any harm

and, if it turned out that I had really not deserved any particular

one, it was reckoned as offsetting some of my naughty pranks that had

happened to escape discovery. "Anything but coddling." That is indeed

a very good principle, and I do not care to criticise it, in spite of

the fact that its application did not help me, not even as a hardening

process; but whatever one may think of it, my mother now and then

carried her harsh treatment too far.

I had long blond hair, less to my own delight than to my mother's; for

to keep it in its would-be state of beauty I was subjected to the most

interminable and occasionally the most painful combing ordeals,

especially those with the fine comb. If I had been called upon at the

time to name the medieval instruments of torture, the "fine comb"

would have stood among those at the head of my list. Until the blood

came there was no thought of stopping. The following day the scarcely

healed spot was again scrutinized with suspicious eye, and thus one

torture was followed by another. To be sure, if, as may be possible, I

owe it to this procedure that I still have a fairly good head of hair,

I did not suffer in vain, and I humbly apologize.

This careful treatment of my scalp was accompanied by an equally

painstaking treatment of my complexion, and this painful care also

showed a tendency to apply too drastic remedies. If my skin was

chapped by the east wind or the severe heat of the sun, my mother was

immediately at hand with a slice of lemon as an unfailing remedy. And

it always helped. Cold cream and such things would have been more to

my fancy and would doubtless have accomplished the same end. But my

mother showed the same relentlessness toward herself, and one who

valiantly leads the way into the battle may properly command others to

follow.

During the time that we occupied the rented apartment I became seven

years of age, just old enough to retain all sorts of things; and yet I

remember exceedingly little from that period, in fact but two events.

These I probably recall because a vivid color impression helped me to

retain them. One of the events was a great fire, in which the barns

outside the Eheinsberg Gate burned down. However, I must state in

advance that it was not the burning of the barns that impressed itself

upon my memory, but a scene that took place immediately before my

eyes, one only incidentally occasioned by the fire, which I did not

see at all. On that day my parents were at a small dinner party, clear

at the other end of the city. When the company was suddenly apprised

of the news that all the barns were on fire, my mother, who was a very

nervous person, immediately felt certain that her children could not

escape death in the flames, or were at least in grave danger of losing

their lives. Being completely carried away by this idea she rushed

from the table, down the long Frederick William street, and without

hat or cloak, and with her hair half tumbled down in her mad chase,

burst into our large front room and found us, snatched out of bed and

wrapped in blankets, sitting around on cushions and footstools. On

catching sight of us she screamed aloud for joy and then fell in a

swoon. When, the next moment, various people, the landlord's family

among others, came in with candles in their hands, the whole picture

which the room presented received a dazzling light, especially the

dark red brocade dress of my mother and the black hair that fell down

over it, and this red and black with the flickering candles round

about--all this I have retained to the present hour.

The other picture, or let me say, rather, the second little occurrence

that still lives in my memory, was entirely devoid of dramatic

elements, but color again came to my assistance. This time it was

yellow, instead of red. During the interim year my father made

frequent journeys to Berlin. Once, say, in the month of November, the

sunset colors were already gleaming through the trees on the city

ramparts, as I stood down in our doorway watching my father as he put

on his driving gloves with a certain aplomb and then suddenly sprang

upon the front seat of his small calash. My mother was there also.

"Really the boy might go along," said my father. I pricked up my ears,

rejoiced in my little soul, which even then longed eagerly for

anything a little out of the ordinary and likely to give me the

shivers. My mother consented immediately, a thing which can be

explained only on the assumption that she expected her darling child

with the beautiful blond locks to make a good impression upon my

grandfather, whose home was the goal of the journey. "Very well," she

said, "take the boy along. But first I will put a warm coat on him."

"Not necessary; I'll put him in the footbag." And, surely enough, I

was hauled up into the carriage and put just as I was into the footbag

lying on the front of the carriage, which was entirely open, with not

even a leather apron stretched across it. If a stone got in our way or

we received a jolt there was nothing to keep me from being thrown out.

But this notion did not for a single moment disturb my pleasure. At a

quick trot we rolled along through Alt-Ruppin toward Cremmen, and long

before we reached this place, which was about half way along the

journey, the stars came out and grew brighter and brighter and more

and more sparkling. I gazed enraptured at this splendor and no sleep

came to my eyes. Never since have I traveled with such delight; it

seemed as though we were journeying to heaven. Toward eight o 'clock

in the morning our carriage drove up before my grandfather's house.

Let me here insert the remark that my grandfather, with the help of

his three wives, whom he had married a number of years apart, had

risen first from a drawing teacher to a private secretary, and then,

what was still more significant, had recently advanced to the dignity

of a well-to-do property owner in Berlin. To be sure, only in the

Little Hamburg street. The art of living implied in this achievement

was not transmitted to any of his sons or grandsons.

We climbed the stairs and entered the door. Here we were greeted by a

homely idyl. Pierre Barthélemy and his third wife--an excellent woman,

whom I later learned to esteem very highly--were just sitting at

breakfast. Everything looked very cozy. On the table was a service of

Dresden china, and among the cups and pitchers I noticed a neat blue

and white figured open-work bread basket with Berlin milk rolls in it.

The rolls then were different from now, much larger and circular in

shape, baked a light brown and yet crisp. Over the sofa hung a large

oil portrait of my grandfather, just recently painted, by Professor

Wachs. It was very good and full of life, but I should have forgotten

the expressive face and perhaps the whole scene of the visit, if it

had not been for the black and sulphur-yellow striped vest, which

Pierre Barthélemy, as I was later informed, regularly wore, and which,

in consequence, occupied a considerable portion of the picture hanging

above his head.

It goes without saying that we shared in the breakfast, and the

grandparents, well-bred people that they were, did not show so very

plainly that, on the whole, the visit, with its to-be-expected

business negotiations, was for them in reality a disturbance. True,

there was all day long not a sign of tenderness toward me, so that I

was heartily glad when we started back home in the evening. Not until

a great deal later was I able to see that the coolness with which I

was received was not meant for poor little me, but, as already

indicated, for my father. I merely had to suffer with him. To such an

extremely solid character as my grandfather the self-assured,

man-of-the-world tone of his son, who by a clever business stroke had

acquired a feeling of independence and comfortable circumstances, was

so disagreeable and oppressive, that my blond locks, on whose

impression my mother had counted with such certainty, failed utterly

to exert their charm.

I have already remarked that such excursions to Berlin occurred

frequently in those days, but still more frequent were journeys into

the provinces, because it was incumbent upon my father to look about

for a new apothecary's shop to buy. If he had had his way about it he

doubtless would never have changed this state of affairs and would

have declared the interim permanent. For, whereas his passion for

gaming was in reality forced upon him by his need to kill time, he had

by nature a genuine passion for his horse and carriage, and to drive

around in the world the whole of life in search of an apothecary's

shop, without being able to find one, would have been, I presume, just

the ideal occupation for him. But he saw that it was out of the

question; a few years of travel would have consumed his means. So he

only took great care to guard against too hasty purchases, and that

answered the same purpose. The more critically he proceeded the longer

he could continue his journeys and provide new quarters every evening

for his beloved white horse, which, by the way, was a charming animal.

I say "his white horse," for he was more concerned about good quarters

for the horse than for himself. And so, for three-fourths of a year,

till Christmas, 1826, he was on the road a great deal, not to say

most, of the time, covering, to be sure, quite an extensive territory,

which, beside the Province of Brandenburg, included Saxony, Thuringia,

and finally Pomerania.

In later life this period of travel was a favorite topic of

conversation with my father, and likewise with my mother, who

ordinarily assumed a rather indifferent attitude toward the favorite

themes of my father. That she made an exception in this case was due

in part to the fact that during his journeyings my father had written

to his young wife many "love letters," which as letters it was my

mother's chief delight to ridicule, so long as she lived. "For I would

have you know, children," she was wont to say, "I still have your

father's love letters; one always keeps such charming things. One of

these I even know by heart, at least the beginning. The letter came

from Eisleben, and in it your father wrote to me: 'I arrived here this

afternoon and have found very good quarters. Also for the horse, whose

neck and shoulders are somewhat galled. However, I will not write you

today about that, but about the fact that this is the place where

Martin Luther was born on the 10th of November, 1483, nine years

before the discovery of America.' There you have your father as a

lover. You see, he would have been qualified to publish a _Letter

Writer_."

All this was said by my mother not only with considerable seriousness,

but also, unfortunately, with bitterness. It always grieved her that

my father, much as he loved her, had never shown the slightest

familiarity with the ways of tenderness.

The travels, which were kept up for nine months, were finally directed

eastward toward the mouth of the Oder. Shortly before Christmas my

father set out by stage coach, to save his horse from the hardships of

winter travel, and when he arrived in Swinemünde the thermometer stood

at 15° below zero, Fahrenheit. The cognac in his bottle was frozen to

a lump of ice. He was so much the more warmly received by the widow

Geisler, who, inasmuch as her husband had died the previous year,

desired to sell her apothecary's shop as quickly as possible. And the

sale was made. In the letter announcing the conclusion of the

transaction was this passage: "We now have a new home in the province

of Pomerania, Pomerania, of which false notions are frequently held;

for it is really a splendid province and much richer than the Mark.

And where the people are rich is the best place to live. Swinemünde

itself is, to be sure, unpaved, but sand is better than bad pavement,

where the horses are always having something the matter with their

insteps. Unfortunately the transfer is not to be made for six months,

which I regret. But I must be doing something again, must have an

occupation once more."

Three days after the arrival of this letter he was home again himself.

We were dragged out of bed, heavy with sleep, and called upon to

rejoice that we were to go to Swinemünde.

To me the word represented but a strange sound....

When we arrived in Swinemünde, in the summer of 1827, it seemed an

ugly hole, and yet, on the other hand, a place of very rare charm,

for, in spite of the dullness of the majority of its streets, it had

that peculiar liveliness that commerce and navigation produce. It

depended altogether upon what part of the city one chose as a point of

observation, whether one's judgment was one thing or its opposite,

favorable or unfavorable. If one chose the Church Square, surrounded

by houses, among which was our apothecary's shop, one could find

little of good to say, although the chief street ran past there. But

if one forsook the inner city and went down to the "River," as the

Swine was regularly called, his hitherto unfavorable opinion was

converted into its opposite. Here ran along the river, for nearly a

mile, the "Bulwark," as poetic a riverside street as one could

imagine. The very fact that here everything was kept to medium

proportions, and there was nowhere anything to recall the grandeur of

the really great commercial centres, these very medium dimensions gave

everything an exceedingly attractive appearance, to which only a

hypochondriac, or a person wholly unappreciative of the charms of form

and color, could fail to respond. To be sure, this "Bulwark" street

was not everywhere the same, indeed some parts of it left much to be

desired, especially those up the river; but from the cross street

which began at the corner of our house and led off at right angles

one could find refreshment of spirit in the pictures that presented

themselves, step by step, as one followed the course of the river.

Here ran out from the sloping bank into the river a number of board

rafts, some smaller, some larger, floating benches upon which, from

early morning on, one saw maids at work washing clothes, always in

cheerful conversation with one another, or with the sailors who leaned

lazily over the street wall watching them. These rafts, which with the

figures upon them produced a most picturesque effect, were called

"clappers," and were used, especially by strangers and summer guests,

for orientation and description of location. E.g. "He lives down by

Klempin's clapper," or "opposite Jahnke's clapper." Between the rafts

or wash benches were regular spaces devoted to piers, and here the

majority of the ships were moored, in the winter often three or four

rows. The crews were on shore at this time, and the only evidence that

the vessels were not wholly unguarded was a column of smoke rising

from the kitchen stovepipes, or, more often, a spitz-dog sitting on a

mound of sailcloth, if not on the top of his kennel, and barking at

the passersby. Then in the spring, when the Swine was again free from

ice, everything began at once, as though by magic, to show signs of

life, and the activity along the river indicated that the time for

sailing was again near. Then the ships' hulls were laid on their

sides, the better to examine them for possible injuries, and if any

were found, one could see the following day, at corresponding places

along the wharf, little fires made of chips of wood and raveled-out

bits of old hawsers, and over them tar was simmering in three-legged

iron pots. Beside these lay whole piles of oakum. And now the process

of calking began. Then, as noon approached, another pot, filled with

potatoes and bacon, was shoved into the fire, and many, many a time,

as I passed by here on my way, at this hour, I eagerly inhaled the

appetizing vapors, not in the least disturbed by the admixture of

pitch. Even in my old age I am still fond of regaling myself, or at

least my nerves, with the bitumen smoke that floats through our Berlin

streets, when they are being newly asphalted.

In the spring and summer time activity was also resumed by the English

steam dredger, which lay in the middle of the river, and upon which it

was incumbent to clear the channel. The quantities of earth and slime

drawn up from the bottom were emptied at a shallow place in the river

and piled up so as to cause a little artificial island to come into

existence. A few years later this island was covered with a rank

growth of reeds and sedges, and in all probability it now supports

houses and establishments of the marine station, as evidence to all

those who saw the first third of the century, that times have changed

and we have been growing as a world power.

For half an hour at a time, when possible, I watched the work of the

English dredger, whose engineer, an old Scotchman by the name of

Macdonald, was a special friend of mine. Who could have told then

that, a generation later, I should make a tour of his Scottish clan

and, under the guidance of a Maedonald, should visit the spot on the

island of Icolmkill, where, according to an old fiction, King Macbeth

lies buried.

I watched also, with as much interest as the dredging, the mooring of

ships, when they came home from long voyages, some of them, such as

the Queen Luise, a marine trading vessel, from their voyages around

the world, which signified something in those days. My main vessel,

however, was the Mentor, which was said to have won the victory in a

fight with Chinese pirates. The pirates carried a long-barreled bronze

cannon which shot better than the rough cast-iron cannons of which the

Mentor had a few on board. Besides, the pirate boat was much swifter,

so that our Swinemünde trader soon found itself in a bad position. But

the captain was equal to the emergency. He had all his heavy cannons

moved to one side of the ship, then purposely moderated his speed, in

order to make it easier for his pursuers to catch up with him. And now

their boat was really alongside, and the pirates were already

preparing to climb over the side of the ship, when the captain of the

Mentor gave the preconcerted signal and the cannons rolled with all

force and swiftness from the one side of the ship to the other and the

weight of the heavy guns, carrying the thin wall before them, crushed

to pieces the boat lying below, already certain of victory, so that

every soul on board was lost.

Such stories were always in the air and were associated, not only with

the ships lying along the "Bulwark," but occasionally also with the

houses on the opposite side. Further down the river both the houses

and the stories lost their charm, until, at the very end of the city,

one came to a large building standing back from the street, which

again aroused interest. This was the recently erected "Society House,"

the meeting place not only for the summer bathers, but also, during

the season, for the leading people of the city, of whom no one,

perhaps, was more often seen there than my father. To be sure, his

frequent visits were really not made on account of the "Society House"

itself, least of all on account of the concerts and theatrical

performances given in it, to say nothing of the occasional balls,--no,

what attracted him and took him out there now and then even £or his

morning glass, was a pavilion standing close by the "Society House,"

in which a major with a historical name and most affable manners,

dressed in a faultless blue frock coat with gold buttons, kept the

bank. This was only too often the resort of my father, who, when he

had lost a considerable sum and had correspondingly enriched the pot

of the bank keeper, instead of being out of sorts over it, simply drew

the inference that the keeping of the bank was a business that

produced sure gain, and the old major with the high white neckcloth

and the diamond pin was an extremely enviable man and, above all, one

very worthy of emulation. In such a career one got something out of

life. My father expressed such opinions, too, when he came home and

sat down late to dinner. This he did once in the presence of a

recently married sister of my mother, who was visiting in our home

during the bathing season.

"But you are not going to-do that," she replied to his remarks.

"Why not?"

"Because there is no honor in it."

"Hm, honor," he ejaculated, and began to drum upon the table with his

fingers; but, not having the courage to argue the question, he merely

turned his face away and left the table.

* * * * *

The city was very ugly and very handsome, and an equal contrast was,

to be observed in its inhabitants, at least with respect to their

moral qualities. Here, as in all seaports, there was a broad stratum

of human beings day in and day out under the influence of rum and

arrack, and they composed the main body of the population; but there

was also, as is quite general in seaports, a society of a materially

higher type spiritually, which overshadowed by far what one usually

met with in those days in the small cities of the inland provinces,

especially the Mark of Brandenburg, where the narrowest philistinism

held sway. That these inhabitants were so thoroughly free from

narrow-mindedness was without doubt due to a variety of causes, but

chiefly, perhaps, to the fact that the whole population was of a

pronounced international character. In the villages of the environs

there still lived presumably a certain number of the descendants of

the Wendic Pomeranian: aborigines of the days of Julin and Vineta. In

Swinemünde itself, especially in the upper stratum of society, there

was such a confusion of races that one came in contact with

representatives from all the nations of Northern Europe, Swedes,

Danes, Dutchmen, and Scotchmen, who had settled here at one time or

another, most of them, no doubt, at the beginning of the century, the

period when the hitherto unimportant city first began to grow and

prosper.

The number of inhabitants, at the time of our arrival, was about four

thousand, of whom hardly a tenth were citizens of the city, and a

still very much smaller fraction entered into consideration socially.

What could be called, with more or less justice, the society of the

city was composed of not more than twenty families. These twenty

families, together with a few of the nobility, who came in from the

country to spend the winter, formed a private club, with headquarters

in the Olthoff Hall, and the club's membership was further enlarged,

as was the society of the city in general, by the dependents, or

retinue, of a few of the richest and most respected houses. These

protégés, half of them poor relatives, half bankrupt merchants,

were not always invited, but were, on all important convivial

occasions, designed to produce a deep impression, and their function

then was to submit to what the Englishmen call practical jokes,

during the second half of the banquet, the first half being, as a

usual thing, conspicuous for the remarkably proper conduct of the

company. When the time arrived for this part of the program all

bonds of pious awe were loosed and they proceeded with most daring

experiments, which my pen hesitates to record. On one occasion one of

these unfortunates--unfortunate because poor and dependent--had to

suffer a jaw tooth to be pulled out with the first pair of tongs that

could be found; but it must not be inferred that those who undertook

the operation were necessarily rough men. It was only a case where the

socially arrogant, who made themselves so generally conspicuous in

those days, especially under the stimulation of wine, did not hesitate

to take such liberties. In rich aristocratic houses in the country

they occasionally went to even greater extremes....

How did we live at our house? On the whole, well, far beyond our

station and our means. So far as the culinary department was

concerned, there were, to be sure, occasional strange periods; for

example, in the summer time, when, on account of the superabundant

yield of milk, the star of milk soup reigned supreme. Then everybody

struck, feigning lack of appetite.

But these were only exceptional conditions, of short duration.

Ordinarily we were well and very sensibly fed, a thing which we owed

less to our mother than to our housekeeper, a Miss Schröder. Before

going any further I must tell about her. When we reached Swinemünde my

mother was still in Berlin taking treatment for her nerves, so that my

father was immediately confronted with the question, who should manage

the household in the interim. There were no local newspapers, so he

had to inquire around orally. After a few days a letter was brought by

messenger from the head forester's lodge at Pudagla, inquiring whether

the head forester's sister might offer us her services. She had

learned housekeeping in her brother's home. My father answered

immediately in the affirmative and for two days rejoiced in the

thought of being able to take into his home as housekeeper a sister of

a head forester, and from Pudagla, to boot. That afforded relief; he

felt honored. On the third day the Schröder girl drove up to our house

and was received by my father. He declared later that he had kept his

countenance, but I am not quite sure of it, in spite of the

possibility that his good heart and his politeness may have made the

victory over himself easier. The good Schröder girl, be it said, was a

pendant to the "princess with the death's head," who came to notice in

Berlin at about this time. What had caused the misfortune of the

latter (who was restored to her original appearance by Dieffenbach, by

a plastic surgical treatment, since become famous), I do not know. In

the case of the Schröder girl, however, it was the smallpox. Now what

is smallpox? Everybody has seen persons who have been afflicted with

smallpox, and has considered the expression, "the devil has threshed

peas on his or her face," more or less apt. At least the expression

has become proverbial. In this case, however, the proverbial phrase,

if applied, would have been mere glossing over, for the Schröder girl

had, not pits the size of peas, but scars half as broad as your hand,

a spectacle, the like of which I have never again encountered. Yet, as

already said, a contract was entered into, and a happier one was never

closed. The Schröder girl was a treasure, and when my mother came home

six weeks later she said: "You did well to take her, Louis; disfigured

as she is, her eyes have been spared, and they tell one that she is

faithful and reliable. And she is safe from love affairs, and we with

her. With her we shall have only pleasant experiences."

And so it proved. So long as we remained in Swinemünde the Schröder

girl remained in our house, loved and respected by old and young, not

least of all by my father, who gave her particular credit for her

sense of justice and her candor, in spite of the fact that he

occasionally had to suffer severely because of these two qualities.

She was always waging war against him. In the first place, out of love

for my mother, for whom she came to be an eloquent advocate, in spite

of the fact that my mother was thoroughly able to defend herself, in

accordance with her maxim, "The best defense is a blow." In the second

place, she was the mistress of the pantry, which was intrusted to her

with most plenary powers, and my father was always undertaking

pillaging expeditions against it, not only to satisfy his own personal

wants, which she might have tolerated, even though he was capable of

consuming half a veal roast for his breakfast, without thinking

anything about it; but she objected strenuously to his raids for the

benefit of his pet chickens, dogs, and cats. We had two cats, Peter

and Petrine. Peter, also called Peter the Great, who might have been

mistaken for a young jaguar, was his special pet, and when this

beautiful animal followed him, purring, into the pantry, and he always

followed, there was no end to the dainty morsels given him. The best

was none too good. This wanton waste made the Schröder girl, faithful

soul that she was, fly into a rage, for she often saw her plans for

dinner completely upset.

In the house she was indeed a treasure, but for us children,

especially me, she was even more than that, she was a real blessing.

The training we received from our parents advanced by fits and starts;

sometimes there was training and again there was none, and never any

thought of continuity. But the Schröder girl supplied the continuity.

She had no favorites, never allowed herself to be outwitted, and knew

just how to handle each one of us. As for me, she knew that I was

good-natured, but sensitive, proud, and under the control of a certain

degree of megalomania. These bad inclinations she wished to hold in

check, and so said to me times without number: "Yes, you think you are

a marvelous fellow, but you are only a childish boy, just like the

rest of them, only at times a bit worse. You always want to play the

young gentleman, but young gentlemen don't lick honey from their

plates, or at least don't deny it if they have done so, in fact they

never tell lies. Not long ago I heard you prating about honor, but I

want to tell you, _that_ doesn't look to me like honor." She insisted

upon truthfulness, treated boasting with fine ridicule, and was chary

of compliments. But when she did praise it was effective. She did me

many a good turn, and not until late in life, when I was past fifty,

did I meet another woman, this time an elderly lady, who exerted such

an educational influence upon me. Even now I am still taking lessons

and learn from people who are young enough to be my grandchildren.

Thus much about the good Schröder girl, and after this digression in

memory of her I ask once more: "Well, how did we live?" I propose to

show how we lived, by means of a series of pictures, and in order to

introduce order and clarity into the description it will be well to

divide our life as we lived it into two halves, a summer life and a

winter life.

First, then, there was the summer life. About the middle of June we

regularly had the house full of visitors; for my mother, in accordance

with the old custom, still kept in touch with her relatives, a trait

which we children only very imperfectly inherited from her. But let it

be understood, she kept in touch with her relatives, not to derive

advantages from them, but to bestow advantages. She was incredibly

generous, and there were times when we, after we had grown up, asked

ourselves the question, which passion really threatened us most, the

gaming passion of our father, or the giving and presenting passion of

our mother. But we finally discovered the answer to the question. What

our father did was simply money thrown away, whereas the excessive

amounts given away by our mother were always unselfishly given and

carried with them a quiet blessing. No doubt a certain desire to be,

so far as possible, a _grande dame_, if only in a very small degree,

had something to do with it, but then all our doings show some

elements of human weakness. Later in life, when we talked with her

about these things, she said: "Certainly, I might have refrained from

doing many things. We spent far more than our income. But I said to

myself: 'What there is will be spent anyhow, and so it is better for

it to go my way than the other.'"

These summer months, from the middle of June on, were often made

especially charming by the numbers of visitors in our home, mostly

young women relatives from Berlin, who were both cheerful and

talkative. The household was then completely changed, for weeks at a

time, and, the hatchet being temporarily buried, merriment and playing

of sly tricks, with occasional boisterous pranks, became the order of

the day. The most brilliant performer in the fun-making competitions

that frequently arose was always my father himself. He was, as

handsome men often are, the absolute opposite of Don Juan, and proud

of his virtue. But by as much as he was unlike Don Juan, he was

charming as a Gascon, when it came to a spirited discussion of pert

and often most daring themes, with young ladies, of whom he made but

one requirement, that they be handsome, otherwise it was not worth his

while. I inherited from him this inclination to enter into subtle

discussions with ladies, in a jesting tone; indeed I have ever carried

this inclination over into my style of writing, and when I read

corresponding scenes in my novels and short stories it once in awhile

seems to me as though I heard my father speaking. Except with this

difference, that I fall far short of his felicitousness, as people who

had known him in his prime often told me, when he was over severity

and I was correspondingly along in years. I have frequently been

addressed in some such way as this: "Now see here, you do very well,

when you have your good days, but you can't compete with your father."

And that was certainly true. His small talk, born of bonhomie and at

the same time enlivened with fantastic lawyerly artifice, was simply

irresistible, even when dealing with business matters, in which as a

rule heartiness has no place. And yet his remarks on money matters had

a lasting effect, so that none of us children ever cherished the

slightest feeling of bitterness on account of his most remarkable

financial operations. My mother, however, was of too different a

nature to be easily converted or carried away by his social graces.

These matters were to her most repugnant when treated lightly and

jestingly. "Whatever is serious is not funny, that's all." But she

never disputed the fact that, as a happy humorist, he always succeeded

in drawing people over to his side, though she never failed to add:

"unfortunately."

And now let us return to the summer visitors in our home. At times it

was rather difficult to furnish continual rounds of entertainment for

the young women, and would perhaps have proved impossible, if it had

not been for the horses. Almost every afternoon, when the weather was

good, the carriage drove up to our door, and such days during the

bathing season, when we were often almost completely overwhelmed with

visitors, were probably the only times when my mother, without in the

least sacrificing her fundamental convictions, was temporarily

reconciled to the existence of horse and carriage. Whoever knows

Swinemünde, and there are many who do know the place, is aware of the

fact that one is never embarrassed there for a beautiful spot to visit

on afternoon drives, and even in those days this was as true as it is

today. There was the trip along the beach to Heringsdorf, or, on the

other side, out to the moles; but the most popular drives, because

they afforded protection from the sun, were those back into the

country, either through the dense beech forest toward Corswant, or

better still to the village of Camminke, situated near the Haff of

Stettin and the Golm (mountain). There was a much frequented

skittle-alley there, where women played as well as men. I myself liked

to stand by the splintery lath trough, in which the skittle-boy rolled

back the balls. My only reason for choosing this position was because

I had heard a short time before that one of the players at this very

alley, in catching a ball as it rolled to him, had run a long lath

splinter under the nail of his index finger. That had made such an

impression on me that I always stood there shuddering for fear of a

repetition of the accident, which fortunately did not occur. When I

finally grew tired of waiting I stepped through a lattice gate, always

hanging aslant and always creaky, into a garden plot running along

close by the skittle-alley and parallel with it. It was a genuine

peasant's garden, with touch-me-nots and mignonette in bloom, and in

one place the mallows grew so tall that they formed a lane. Then when

the sun went down behind the forest the Golm, which lay to the west,

was bathed in red light, and the metal ball on its tall pillar looked

down, like a sphere of gold, upon the village and the skittle-garden.

Myriads of mosquitoes hung in the air, and the bumble bees flew back

and forth between the box-edged beds.

Our visitors usually left at the beginning of August, and when

September came the last of the hotel guests departed from the city.

If anybody chose to remain longer it was inconvenient for the

landlords, in which connection the following scene occurred. A man, a

Berliner of course, on returning to his hotel, after accompanying some

departing friends to their steamer, sat down leisurely by his host and

hostess, rubbed his hands together, and said: "Well, Hoppensack, at

last the Berliners are all gone, or at least nearly all of them; now

we shall have a good time, now it will be cozy." He expected, of

course, that the host and hostess would agree with him most heartily.

But instead of that he found himself looking into long faces. Finally

he screwed up his courage and asked why they were so indifferent.

"Why, good heavens, Mr. Schünemann," said Hoppensack, "a recorder and

his wife came to us the last of May and now it is almost the middle of

September. We want to be alone again, you see." As Mrs. Hoppensack

nodded approvingly, there was nothing left for Schünemann to do but to

depart himself the next day.

Not long after the last summer guests had gone the equinoctial storms

set in, and, if it was a bad year, they lasted on into November. First

the chestnuts fell, then the tiles rattled down from the roof, and

from the eaves-troughs, always placed with their outlets close by

bedroom windows, the rain splashed noisily down into the yard. In the

course of time, scattered clouds sailed across the clearing sky and

the air turned cold. Everybody felt the chilliness, and all day long

there was an old woodchopper at work in the shed. My father would

often go down to see him, take the ax and split wood for him a

half-hour at a time.

Social activities were at a standstill during these late autumn days.

People were recovering from the strain of the summer season and

storing up strength for winter entertainments. Before these began

there was an interregnum of several weeks, the slaughtering and baking

times, the latter coinciding with the Christmas period. First came

the slaughtering of geese. A regular household without a goose-killing

time could hardly have been thought of. Many things had to be taken

into account. First of all, perhaps, were the feathers to make new

beds, which were always needed for guest chambers; but the chief

concern were the smoked goose-breasts, almost as important articles as

the hams and sides of bacon hanging in the chimney. Shortly before St.

Martin's day, if enough geese had been collected to supply the needs,

they were penned up for fattening, in the court, which gave rise to a

horrible cackling, well calculated to rob us of our night's rest for a

whole week. But a day was straightway set for the beginning of the

feast, about the middle of November. In the court, in a lean-to built

near the end of the house, and, strange to say, with a dove-cote over

it, was the servants' room, in which, beside the cook, two house-maids

slept, provided always they did any sleeping. The coachman was

supposed, according to a rule of the house, to occupy the straw-loft,

but was happy to forego the independence of these quarters, which went

with his position, preferring by his presence to crowd still worse the

already crowded space of the servants' room, in full accord with

Schiller's lines,

"Room is in the smallest hovel

For a happy, loving pair."

But when goose-killing time came it meant a very considerable further

overcrowding, for on the evening that the massacring was to begin

there was added to the number of persons usually quartered in the

servants' room a special force of old women, four or five in number,

who at other times earned a living at washing or weeding.

Then the sacrificial festivities began, always late in the evening.

Through the wide-open door--open, because otherwise it would not have

been possible to endure the stifling air--the stars shone into the

smoky room, which was dimly lighted by a tallow candle, with always a

thief in the candle. Near the door stood in a semi-circle the five

slaughter priestesses, each with a goose between her knees, and as

they bored holes through the skullcaps of the poor fowls, with sharp

kitchen knives--a procedure, the necessity of which I have never

understood--they sang all sorts of folk-songs, the text of which

formed a strange contrast, as well to the murderous act as to the

mournful melody. At least one had to suppose this to be the case, for

the maids, who sat on the edge of the bed with their guest from the

straw-loft between them, followed the folksongs with never-ending

merriment, and at the passages that sounded specially mournful they

even burst into cheers. Both my parents were morally strict, and they

often discussed the question, whether there were not some way to put a

stop to this insolent conduct, but they finally gave it up. My father

had a lurking suspicion that such a custom had existed in antiquity,

and, after he-had looked the matter up, said: "It is a repetition of

ancient conditions, the Roman saturnalia, or, what amounts to the same

thing, a case where the servants temporarily lord it over the

so-called lords." When he had thus classified the occurrence

historically he was satisfied, the more so as the maids always amused

him the following morning by lowering their eyes in a most unusually

modest fashion. Then he would make fantastically extravagant remarks,

as though _Gil Blas_ had been his favorite book. That was not the

case, however. He read Walter Scott exclusively, for which I am

grateful to him even to this day, since, even then, a few crumbs fell

from his table for me. His favorite among all the works was _Quintin

Durward_, probably on account of its French subject.

I have here further to add that the terrors of this goose-killing time

were by no means ended with the slaughter night and the mournful

melodies. On the contrary, they lasted at least three or four days

longer, for the slaughtering time was also the time when the giblets

dressed with goose-blood were served daily at our table, a dish which,

according to the Pomeranian view, stands unrivaled in the realm of

cookery. Furthermore my father considered it his duty to support the

view peculiar to this region, and, when the great steaming platter

appeared, would say: "Ah, that is fine! Just eat some of this; it is

the black soup of the Spartans, full of strength and stamina." But I

observed that he, along with the rest of us, picked out the dried

fruit and almond dumplings, leaving the nourishing gravy for the

servants outside, above all for the slaughtering and mourning women,

who by their boring operations had established the most legitimate

claim to it.

About a fortnight later came the pig-killing, toward which my feeling

remained exactly the same as on that occasion when, hardly seven

years of age, I had fled from the city toward Alt-Ruppin, in

order to escape, not only the spectacle, but a whole gamut of

ear-and-heart-rending sounds. But I had meanwhile grown out of

childhood into boyhood, and a boy, whether he will or no, feels

honor-bound manfully to take everything that comes along, even if his

own deepest nature revolts against it. That the prospect of rice

pudding with raisins in it was a contributing factor in this comedy of

bravery, I am unable to say, for fond as I am of good things to eat, I

was always, during the weeks just preceding Christmas, half upset by

the smell of hot grease that drifted through the house. At least I

never had what could be called a really good appetite during this

period, despite the fact that it would have been particularly worth

while just then. Especially would such have been the case when, as

usually happened about the first of December, a stag was sent in from

the chief forester's and was hung up, eviscerated, as game usually is,

against the gable end of the servants' house. Day after day the cook

would go to this horrible gable ornament and cut out, first the

haunch, then the shoulders and legs, with the result that we always

heaved a sigh of relief when the glory of this venison was a thing of

the past.

A far happier time was the baking week, which began with spice-nuts

and sugar cookies, and ended with bretzels, wreath-cakes, and cakes

baked on tins. Not only were we admitted to the bakeroom, where there

was a most alluring odor of bitter almonds and grated lemons; we also

received, as a foretaste of Christmas, a bountiful supply of little

cake-rolls, baked especially for us children. "I know," said my

mother, "that the children will upset their stomachs eating them, but

even that is better than that they should be restricted to too low a

diet. They shall have joyful holiday feeling during all these days,

and nothing can give it to them better than holiday cakes." There is

something in that view, and it may be absolutely right if the children

are thoroughly robust. But we were not so robust that the principle

could be applied to us without modification. And so, about Christmas

time, I was always much given to crying.

On New Year's Eve there was a club ball, which I, being the oldest

child, was allowed to witness. I took my position in one corner of the

hall and looked on with vacillating feelings. When the dancing couples

whirled past me I was happy, on the one hand, because I was permitted

to stand there as a sort of guest and share in the pleasure with my

eyes, and yet, on the other hand, I was unhappy, because I was merely

an onlooker instead of a participator in the dance. My personal

insignificance weighed heavy upon me, doubly heavy because of the

gastric condition I was regularly in at this reason, and it continued

so until the nightwatchman, wrapped in his long blue cloak, came into

the hall at midnight and, after blowing a preliminary signal on his

horn, wished everybody a happy New Year. Then, as if by magic, my

feeling of sentimentality vanished entirely, and I was carried away by

the comic grotesqueness of the scene, and soon regained my freedom and

buoyancy of spirit.

Just about this time social activities began, taking the form of a

series of weekly feasts, many of which resembled that of Belshazzar,

in so far as a spirit hand was at the very time writing the bankruptcy

of the host upon the wall. However, my knowledge of the details of

these feasts was derived only from hearsay. But any special banquets,

whether great or small, that fell to the lot of our own house I saw

with my own eyes and it is about these that I now propose to tell.

When it came our turn to entertain, the whole house was pervaded with

a feeling of solemnity, which had a certain similarity to the feeling

at the time of a wedding. Furthermore, a parallel to the tripartite

division into wedding-eve celebration, wedding day, and the day after,

appeared in the form of preparation day, real feast-day, and eating of

the remnants. Which of these three days deserved the prize may remain

an open question, but I am inclined to believe I liked the first the

best. To be sure, it was unepicurean and called for much

self-restraint, but it was rich in anticipation of glorious things to

come.

On this day of preparation the widow Gaster, a celebrated cook, came

to our house, as she did to all other houses on similar occasions. Her

personal appearance united complacence with dignity, and by virtue of

this latter quality she was received with respect and unlimited

confidence. Because of a dislike, easily understood, for all the

things she had to prepare day in and day out, especially sweets, she

lived-almost exclusively on red wine, deriving the little other

sustenance she needed from the vapors of hot grease, with which she

was continually surrounded. Her arrival at our house was always a

signal for me to plant myself near the kitchen, where everything that

took place could be observed and, incidentally, admired. It was always

her first task to bake a tree-cake on a spit. She kept a record of all

the tree-cakes she baked, and when the number reached a thousand the

housewives of Swinemünde gave her a well-deserved feast in celebration

of the achievement. To be sure, tree-cakes are to be had even today,

but they are degenerations, weak, spongy, and pale-cheeked, whereas in

those days they had a happy firmness, which in the most successful

specimens rose to crispness, accompanied by a scale of colors running

from the darkest ocher to the brightest yellow. It always gave me

great pleasure to watch a tree-cake come into being. Toward the back

wall of a huge fireplace stood a low half-dome, built of bricks, the

top projecting forward like a roof, the bottom slanting toward the

back. Along this slanting part was built a narrow charcoal fire about

four feet long and by it were placed two small iron supports, upon

which a roasting spit was laid, with a contrivance for turning it.

However, the spit resting upon the supports proved to be something

more than a mere rod. In fact the spit itself was run lengthwise

through a hollow wooden cone, which had a covering of greased paper

over its outer surface, and the purpose of which was to form a core

for the tree-cake. Then, with a tin spoon fastened upon a long stick,

the cook began to pour on a thin batter, which at first dripped off in

a way that made the method of application appear futile, and this

continued for a considerable length of time. But from the moment that

the batter became more consistent, and the dripping slower, hope began

to revive, and in a few hours the splendidly browned and copiously

jagged tree-cake was taken off the wooden cone. All this had a

symbolical significance. The successful completion of this _pièce de

résistance_ inspired confidence in the success of the feast itself.

The tree-cake cast the horoscope, so to speak, of the whole affair.

I shall pass over the kitchen activities on the day of the

entertainment and describe instead the feast itself. Along extension

table was moved into my mother's parlor--the only room available for

the purpose--and soon stood well set in front of the moire sofa with

the three hundred silver studs. The guests were not seated at the

table till the candles were lit. The man who presided over the banquet

always sat with his back toward the Schinkel mirror, whereas all the

other guests could, with little or no inconvenience, observe

themselves in the glass.

So far as I can recall they were always gentlemen's dinner parties,

with twelve or fourteen persons, and only on rare occasions did my

mother appear at the table, then usually accompanied by her sister,

who often visited us for months at a time in the winter season and was

in those days still very young and handsome. It was always a specially

difficult matter to assign her a suitable place, and only when old Mr.

von Flemming and Privy Councillor Kind were present was she in any

degree safe from extremely ardent attentions. It was almost impossible

to protect her from such attentions. The men had respect for virtue,

perhaps, though I have my doubts even about that, but virtuous airs

were considered in bad taste, and where was the line to be drawn

between reality and appearance? That the ladies retired from the table

toward the end of the meal and appeared again only for a brief quarter

of an hour to do the honors at coffee, goes without saying.

I have spoken above of the culinary art of good Mrs. Gaster, but in

spite of that art the bill of fare was really simple, especially in

comparison with the luxury prevalent nowadays at dinner parties.

Simple, I say, and yet stable. No man was willing to fall behind a set

standard, nor did he care to go beyond it. The soup was followed by a

fish course, and that, without fail, by French turnips and smoked

goose-breast. Then came a huge roast, and finally a sweet dish, with

fruits, spice-cakes, and Königsberg marchpane. An almost greater

simplicity prevailed with respect to the wines. After the soup sherry

was passed. Then a red wine of moderate price and moderate quality

gained the ascendant and held sway till coffee was served. So the

peculiar feature of these festivities did not lie in the materials

consumed, but, strange to say, in a certain spiritual element, in the

tone that prevailed. This varied considerably, when we take into

account the beginning and the end. The beginning was marked by toasts

in fine style, and occasionally, especially if the feast was at the

same time a family party--a birthday celebration or something of the

sort--there were even verses, which from the point of view of

regularity of form and cleverness of ideas left nothing to be desired.

Only recently I found among my father's papers some of these literary

efforts and was astonished to see how good they were. Humor, wit, and

playing on words were never lacking. There were special occasions when

even deep emotion, was expressed and then those who were farthest from

having a proper feeling, but nearest to a state of delirium, arose

regularly from their seats and marched up to the speaker to embrace

and kiss him. This kissing scene always denoted the beginning of the

second half of the feast. The further the dinner advanced the freer

became the conversation, and, when it had reached the stage where all

feeling of restraint was cast aside, the most insolent and often the

rudest badgering was indulged in, or, if for any reason this was not

allowed, the company began to rally certain individuals, or, as we

might say, began to poke fun at them. One of the choicest victims of

this favorite occupation of the whole round table was my papa. It had

long been known that when it was a question of conversation he had

three hobbies, viz., personal ranks and decorations in the Prussian

State, the population of all cities and hamlets according to the

latest census, and the names and ducal titles of the French marshals,

including an unlimited number of Napoleonic anecdotes, the latter

usually in the original. Occasionally this original version was

disputed from the point of view of sentence structure and grammar,

whereupon my father, when driven into a corner, would reply with

imperturbable repose: "My French feeling tells me that it must be

thus, thus and not otherwise," a declaration which naturally served

but to increase the hilarity.

Yes, indeed, Napoleon and his marshals! My father's knowledge in this

field was simply stupendous, and I wager there was not in that day a

single historian, nor is there any now, who, so far as French war

stories and personal anecdotes of the period from Marengo to Waterloo

are concerned, would have been in any sense of the word qualified to

enter into competition with him. Where he got all his material is an

enigma to me. The only explanation I can offer is that he had in his

memory a pigeonhole, into which fell naturally everything he found

that appealed to his passion, in his constant reading of journals and

miscellanies.

* * * * *

When we had been safely lodged, at Midsummer, 1827, in the house with

the gigantic roof and the wooden eavestrough, into which my father

could easily lay his hand, this question immediately presented itself:

"What is to become of the children now? To what school shall we send

them?" If my mother had been there a solution of the problem would

doubtless have been found, one that would have had due regard for what

was befitting our station, at least, if not for what we should learn.

But since my mama, as already stated, had remained in Berlin to

receive treatment for her nerves, the decision rested with my father,

and he settled the matter in short order, presumably after some such

characteristic soliloquy as follows: "The city has only one school,

the city school, and as the city school is the only one, it is

consequently the best." No sooner thought than done. Before a week was

passed I was a pupil of the city school. About the school I remember

very little, only that there was a large room with a blackboard,

stifling air in spite of the fact that the windows were always open,

and an endless number of boys in baize and linen jackets, unkempt and

barefoot, or in wooden shoes, which made a fearful noise. It was very

sad. But even then, as unfortunately in later years, I had so few

pleasing illusions about going to school that the conditions

previously described to me did not appear specially dreadful when I

became personally acquainted with them. I simply supposed that things

had to be thus. But toward autumn, when my mother arrived on the scene

and saw me coming home from school with the wooden-shoe boys, she was

beside herself and cast an anxious glance at my hair, which she

doubtless thought she could not well trust in such company. She then

had one of her heart-to-heart talks with my father, who was probably

told that he had again taken only himself into consideration. That

same day my withdrawal from school was announced to Rector Beda, who

lived diagonally across the street from us. He was not angry at the

announcement, declared, on the contrary, to my mother that "he had

really been surprised. * * *" Thus far all was well. Just criticism

had been exercised and action had been taken in accord with it. But

now that it was necessary to find something better to substitute for

the school, even my mother was at her wits' end. Teachers seemed to

be, or were in fact, lacking, and as it had been impossible in so

short a time to establish relations to the good families of the city,

it was decided for the present to let me grow up wild and calmly to

wait till something turned up. But to prevent my lapsing into dense

ignorance I was to read an hour daily to my mother and learn some

Latin and French words from my father, in addition to geography and

history.

"Will you be equal to that, Louis?" my mother had asked.

"Equal to? What do you mean by 'equal to?' Of course I am equal to it.

Your same old lack of confidence in me."

"Not twenty-four hours ago you yourself were full of doubt about it."

"I presume the plan did not appeal to me then. But if it must be, I

understand the Prussian pharmacopoeia as well as anybody, and in my

parents' house French was spoken. As for the rest, to speak of it

would be ridiculous. You know that in such things I am more than a

match for ten graduates."

As a matter of fact he really gave me lessons, which, I may say in

advance, were kept up even after the need of them no longer existed,

and, peculiar as these lessons were, I learned more from them than

from many a famous teacher. My father picked out quite arbitrarily the

things he had long known by heart or, perhaps, had just read the same

day, and vitalized geography with history, always, of course, in such

a way that in the end his favorite themes were given due prominence.

For example:

"Do you know about East and West Prussia?"

"Yes, papa; that is the country after which Prussia is called Prussia

and after which we are all called Prussians."

"Very good, very good; a little too much Prussia, but that doesn't

matter. And do you also know the capitals of the two provinces?"

"Yes, papa; Königsberg and Danzig."

"Very good. I myself have been in Danzig, and came near going to

Königsberg, too, but something intervened. Have you ever heard

perchance who it was that finally captured Danzig after the brave

defense of our General Kalckreuth?"

"No, papa."

"Well, it is not to be expected. Very few people do know it, and the

so-called higher educated never know it. Well, it was General Lefèvre,

a man of rare bravery, upon whom Napoleon later bestowed the title of

_Duc de Dantzic_, spelled with a final c, in which regard the

languages differ. That was in the year 1807."

"After the battle of Jena?"

"Yes, it may be put that way; but only in the same sense as if you

were to say, it was after the Seven Years' War."

"I don't understand, papa."

"Doesn't matter. I mean, Jena was too long ago. But one might say it

was after the battle of Prussian Eylau, a fearfully bloody battle, in

which the Russian Guard was almost annihilated, and in which Napoleon,

before surrendering, said to his favorite Duroc: 'Duroc, today I have

made the acquaintance of the sixth great power of Europe, _la boue_.'"

"What does that mean?"

"_La boue_ means the mud. But one can express it more strongly in

German, and I am inclined to think that Napoleon, who, when he felt

like it, had something cynical about him, really meant this stronger

expression."

"What is cynical?"

"Cynical--hm, cynical--it is a word often used, and one might say,

cynical is the same as rough or brutal. But I presume it may be

defined more accurately. We will look it up later in the encyclopedia.

It is well to be informed about such things, but one does not need to

know everything on the spur of the moment."

Such was the character of the geography lessons, always ending with

historical anecdotes. But he preferred to begin at once with history,

or what seemed to him history. And here I must mention his pronounced

fondness for all the events and the persons concerned in them between

the siege of Toulon and the imprisonment on the island of St. Helena.

He was always reverting to these persons and things. I have elsewhere

named his favorites, with Ney and Lannes at the head of the list, but

in that enumeration I forgot to mention one man, who stood perhaps

nearer to his heart than these, namely, Latour d'Auvergne, of whom he

had told me any number of anecdotes back in our Ruppin days. These

were now repeated. According to the new stories Latour d'Auvergne bore

the title of the "First Grenadier of France," because in spite of his

rank of general he always stood in the rank and file, next to the

right file-leader of the Old Guard. Then when he fell, in the battle

of Neuburg, Napoleon gave orders that the heart of the "First

Grenadier" be placed in an urn and carried along with the troop, and

that his name, Latour d'Auvergne, be regularly called at every

roll-call, and the soldier serving as file-leader be instructed to

answer in his stead and tell where he was. This was about what I had

long ago learned by heart from my father's stories; but his fondness

for this hero was so great that, whenever it was at all possible, he

returned to him and asked the same questions. Or, to be more accurate,

the same scene was enacted, for it was a scene.

"Do you know Latour d'Auvergne?" he usually began.

"Certainly. He was the First Grenadier of France."

"Good. And do you also know how he was honored after he was dead?"

"Certainly."

"Then tell me how it was."

"Very well; but you must first stand up, papa, and be file-leader, or

I can't do it."

Then he would actually rise from his seat on the sofa and in true

military fashion take his position before me as file-leader of the Old

Guard, while I myself, little stick-in-the-mud that I was, assumed the

part of the roll-calling officer. Then I began to call the names:

"Latour d'Auvergne!"

"He is not here," answered my father in a basso profundo voice.

"Where is he, pray?"

"He died on the field of honor."

Once in awhile my mother attended these peculiar lessons--the one

about Latour, however, was never ventured in her presence--and she did

not fail to give us to understand, by her looks, that she considered

this whole method, which my father with an inimitable expression of

countenance called his "Socratic method," exceedingly dubious. But

she, by nature wholly conventional, not only in this particular, but

in others, was absolutely wrong, for, to repeat, I owe in fact to

these lessons, and the similar conversations growing out of them, all

the best things, at least all the most practical things, I know. Of

all that my father was able to teach me nothing has been forgotten and

nothing has proved useless for my purposes. Not only have these

stories been of hundredfold benefit to me socially throughout my long

life, they have also, in my writing, been ever at hand as a Golden

Treasury, and if I were asked, to what teacher I felt most deeply

indebted, I should have to reply: to my father, my father, who knew

nothing at all, so to speak, but, with his wealth of anecdotes picked

up from newspapers and magazines, and covering every variety of theme,

gave me infinitely more help than all my _Gymnasium_ and _Realschule_

teachers put together. What information these men offered me, even if

it was good, has been for the most part forgotten; but the stories of

Ney and Rapp have remained fresh in my memory to the present hour.

My father's method, which, much as I feel indebted to it, was after

all somewhat peculiar and utterly devoid of logic and consistency,

would in all probability have led to violent quarrels between my

parents, if my critical mother, who saw only its weaknesses and none

of its virtues, had attached any special significance to it in

general. But that was not the case. She only felt that my father's way

of teaching was totally different from the usual way, in that it would

not lead to many practical results, i.e., would not give me much

preparation for an examination, and in this respect she was perfectly

right. However, as she herself attached so little value to knowledge

in general, she contented herself with smiling at the "Socratic

method," as she saw no reason for becoming seriously wrought up over

it. According to her honest conviction there were other things in life

of far greater importance than knowledge, to say nothing of erudition,

and these other things were: a good appearance and good manners. That

her children should all present a good appearance was with her an

article of faith, so to speak, and she considered it a natural

consequence of their good appearance that they either already had or

would acquire good manners. So the only essential was to present a

good appearance. Serious studies seemed to her not a help, but, on the

contrary, a hindrance to happiness, that is to say, real happiness,

which she looked upon as inseparable from money and property. A

hundred-thousand-dollar man _was_ something, and she respected, even

honored him, whereas chief judges and councillors of the chancery

commanded very little respect from her, and would have commanded even

less, if the State, which she did respect, had not stood behind them.

She was incapable of bowing in good faith to any so-called spiritual

authority, not because she cherished too exalted an opinion of

herself--she was, on the contrary, entirely without vanity and

arrogance--but solely because, constituted as she was, she could not

recognize an authority of knowledge, much less of erudition, in a

practical field of life--and with her the non-practical fields never

entered into consideration.

I still remember the time, some twenty years after the events just

narrated, when my parents were thinking of separating and of

eventually being divorced. A separation actually came about, the

divorce idea was dropped. But the latter was for a time considered in

all seriousness, and a friend of our family, Pastor Schultz, the then

preacher at Bethany, who made a specialty of divorce questions--it was

in the reign of Frederick William IV., when such problems were treated

with revived dogmatic severity--Pastor Schultz, I say, opposed the

plan, as soon as he heard of it, with all his power and eloquence. My

mother had a great deal of admiration for him and knew, besides, the

respect he enjoyed of "those highest in authority," and "those highest

in authority" meant something to her; nevertheless his severe

presentation of the matter made not the slightest impression upon her;

in fact his argument was so fruitless that, as soon as he finished,

she said with a reposeful air of superiority: "My dear Schultz, you

understand this question thoroughly; but whether or not I have a right

to secure a divorce is a question which no human being in the whole

world can answer so well as I myself." With that she closed the

conversation.

She was similarly skeptical of every kind of authority, and had no

confidence whatever in the ability of the three university faculties.

For example, since patriarchal conditions were her ideal, she

questioned whether mankind derived any material advantages from

jurisprudence. It settled everything, as she thought, by favoritism or

personal advantage, or at least in a mechanical way. Riches, property,

especially landed property, accompanied if possible by the airs of a

legation attaché--_that_ was something that unlocked the world and

the hearts of men, that was real power. Everything else was comedy,

illusion, a soap-bubble, that threatened to burst any moment. And then

nothing was left. One can readily understand why my mother, with such

views, insisted upon taking me out of the barefoot school, and did not

consider an interim, with no regular school instruction, any special

misfortune. The evil in it was that it violated the rule. As for the

rest, the little bit of learning lost could be made up at any time.

And if not, then not....

It is a pretty saying that every child has its angel, and one does not

need to be very credulous to believe it. For the little tots this

angel is a fairy, enveloped in a long white lily veil, which stands

smiling at the foot of a cradle and either wards off danger or helps

out of it when it is really at hand. That is the fairy for the little

ones. But when one has outgrown the cradle or crib, and has begun to

sleep in a regular bed, in other words, when one has become a robust

boy, one still needs his angel just the same, indeed the need is all

the greater. But instead of the lily angel it needs to be a sort of

archangel, a strong, manly angel, with shield and spear, otherwise his

strength will not suffice for his growing tasks.

As a matter of fact, I was not wild and venturesome, and all my

escapades that were attributed to me as of such a nature were always

undertaken after a wise estimate of my strength. Nevertheless I have,

with respect to that period, a feeling that I was constantly being

rescued, a feeling in which I can hardly be in error. When I left home

at the age of twelve, the age at which, as a usual thing, real dangers

begin, there was doubtless a sudden change in my case, for it now

seems to me as though my angel had had a vacation from that time on.

All dangers ceased entirely or shrank into such insignificance that

they left no impression upon me. In view of the fact that the two

periods were so close together, there must have been this difference,

otherwise I should not have retained such entirely different feelings

about them.

It was one of our chief sports to fire off so-called shooting-keys.

That the children of large cities know anything about shooting-keys is

hardly probable, hence I may be permitted to describe them here. They

were hollow keys with very thin walls, consequently of enormous bore,

so to speak, and were used to lock trunks, especially the trunks of

servant girls. It was our constant endeavor to gain possession of such

keys and at times our expeditions were nothing short of piracy. Woe be

unto the poor servant girl who forgot to take a key out of its lock!

She never saw it again. We took possession of it, and the simple

procedure of filing out a touchhole produced a finished firearm. As

these keys were always rusty, and occasionally split, it not

infrequently happened that they burst; but we always escaped injury.

The angel helped.

Much more dangerous was the art of making fireworks, which I was

always practicing. With the help of sulphur and saltpeter, which we

kept in a convenient place in the apothecary's shop, I had made of

myself a full-fledged pyrotechnician, in which process I was very

materially aided by my skill in the manipulation of cardboard and

paste. All sorts of shells were easily made, and so I produced

Catherine-wheels, revolving suns, and flower-pots. Often these

creations refused to perform the duty expected of them, and then we

piled them up and, by means of a sulphurated match, touched off the

whole heap of miscarried glory and waited to see what it would do.

This was all done with comparatively little danger. Fraught with all

the more danger for us was the thing which was considered the simplest

and lowest product of the art of pyrotechnics, and was so rated by us,

viz., the serpent. Very often the serpents I made would not burn

properly, because I had not used the right mixture, no doubt, and that

always vexed me greatly. When a Catherine-wheel refused to turn, that

could at least be tolerated, for a Catherine-wheel is a comparatively

difficult thing to make. A serpent, on the other hand, could not well

help burning, and when, for all that, one simply would not burn, that

was a humiliation that could not be suffered. So I would bend over the

shells as they stuck in the pile of sand and begin to blow, in order

to give new life to the dying tinder fire. When it went out entirely,

that was really the best thing for me. But if it went off suddenly, my

hair was singed or my forehead burned. Nothing worse ever happened,

for the angel was protecting me with his shield.

That was the element of fire. But we also came in contact with water,

which was not to be wondered at in a seaport.

In the autumn of 1831 a Berlin relative made me a present of a cannon,

not just an ordinary child's plaything, such as can be bought of any

coppersmith or tinner, but a so-called pattern-cannon, such as is seen

only in arsenals,--a splendid specimen, of great beauty and elegance,

the carriage firm and neat, the barrel highly polished and about a

foot and a half long. I was more than delighted, and determined to

proceed at once to a bombardment of Swinemünde. Two boys of my age and

my younger brother climbed with me into a boat lying at Klempin's

Clapper, and we rowed down-stream, with the cannon in the bow. When we

were about opposite the Society House I considered that the time had

arrived for the beginning of the bombardment, and fired three shots,

waiting after each shot to see whether the people on the "Bulwark"

took notice of us, and whether they showed due respect for the

seriousness of our actions. But neither of these things happened. A

thing that did happen, however, was that we meanwhile got out into the

current, were caught by it and carried away, and when we suddenly saw

ourselves between the embankments of the moles, I was suddenly seized

with a terrible fright. I realized that, if we kept on in this way, in

ten minutes more we should be out at sea and might drift away toward

Bornholm and the Swedish coast. It was a desperate situation, and we

finally resorted to the least brave, but most sensible, means

imaginable, and began to scream with all our might, all the time

beckoning and waving various objects, showing on the whole

considerable cleverness in the invention of distress signals. At last

we attracted the attention of some pilots standing on the West mole,

who shook their fingers threateningly at us, but finally, with smiling

countenances, threw us a rope. That rescued us from danger. One of the

pilots knew me; his son was one of my playmates. This doubtless

accounts for the fact that the seamen dismissed us with a few

epithets, which might have been worse. I took my cannon under my arm,

but not without having the satisfaction of seeing it admired. Then I

went home, after promising to send out Hans Ketelböter, a lusty

sailor-boy who lived quite near our home, to row back the boat, which

was meanwhile moored to a pile.

This was the most unique among my adventures with water, but by no

means the most dangerous. The most dangerous was at the same time the

most ordinary, because it recurred every time I went swimming in the

sea. Any one who knows the Baltic seaside resorts, knows the so-called

"reffs." By "reffs" are meant the sandbanks running parallel to the

beach, out a hundred or two hundred paces, and often with very little

water washing over them. Upon these the swimmers can stand and rest,

when, they have crossed the deep places lying between them and the

shore. In order that they may know exactly where these shallow places

are, little red banners are hoisted over the sandbanks. Here lay for

me a daily temptation. When the sea was calm and everything normal, my

skill as a swimmer was just sufficient to carry me safely over the

deep places to the nearest sandbank. But if the conditions were less

favorable, or if by chance I let myself down too soon, so that I had

no solid ground beneath my feet, I was frightened, sometimes almost to

death. Luckily I always managed to get out, though not by myself.

Strength and help came from some other source.

Another danger of water which I was destined to undergo had no

connection with the sea, but occurred on the river, close by the

"Bulwark," not five hundred paces from our house. I shall tell about

it later; but first I wish to insert here another little occurrence,

in which no help of an angel was needed.

I was not good at swimming, nor at steering or rowing; but one of the

things I could do well, very well indeed, was walking on stilts.

According to our family tradition we came from the region of

Montpelier, whereas I personally ought by rights to be able, in view

of my virtuosity as a stilt-walker, to trace my ancestry back to the

Landes, where the inhabitants are, so to speak, grown fast to their

stilts, and hardly take them off when they go to bed. To make a long

story short, I was a brilliant stilt-walker, and in comparison with

those of the western Garonne region, the home of the very low stilts,

I had the advantage that I could not get my buskins high enough to

suit me, for the little blocks of wood fastened on the inner side of

my stilts were some three feet high. By taking a quick start and

running the ends of the two poles slantingly into the ground I was

able to swing myself without fail upon the stilt-blocks and to begin

immediately my giant stride. Ordinarily this was an unremunerative

art, but on a few occasions I derived real profit from it, when my

stilts enabled me to escape storms that were about to break over my

head. That was in the days just after Captain Ferber, who had served

out his time with the "Neufchâtellers," retired on a pension and moved

to Swinemünde. Ferber, whom the Swinemünders called Teinturier, the

French translation of his name, because of his relation to Neufchâtel,

came of a very good family, was, if I mistake not, the son of a high

official in the ministry of finance, who could boast of long-standing

relations to the Berlin Court, dating back to the war times of the

year 1813. This was no doubt the reason why the son, in spite of the

fact that he did not belong to the nobility and was of German

extraction--the Neufchâtel officers were in those days still for the

most part French-Swiss--was permitted to serve with the élite

battalion, where he was well liked, because he was clever, a good

comrade, and an author besides. He wrote novelettes after the fashions

then in vogue. But in spite of his popularity he could not hold his

position, because his fondness for coffee and cognac, which soon

became restricted to the latter, grew upon him so rapidly that he was

forced to retire. His removal to Swinemünde was doubtless due to the

fact that seaports are better suited for such passions than are inland

cities. Fondness for cognac attracts less attention.

Whatever his reason may have been, however, Ferber was soon as popular

in his new place of residence as previously in Berlin, for he had that

kindliness of character which is the "dearest child of the

dram-bottle." He was very fond of my father, who reciprocated the

sentiment. But this friendship did not spring up at the very beginning

of their acquaintance. In fact it developed out of a little

controversy between them, that is to say, a defeat sustained by my

father, one of whose amiable peculiarities it was, within twenty-four

hours at the latest to convert his anger at being put to flight, into

approbation bordering on homage for the victor.

His defeat came about thus. One day the assertion was made by Ferber,

that, whether we liked it or not, a German must be looked upon as the

"father of the French Revolution," for Minister Necker, though born in

Geneva, was the son or grandson of a Küstrin postmaster. This seemed

to my father a perfectly preposterous assertion, and he combated it

with a rather supercilious mien, till it was finally shown to be

substantially correct. Then my father's arrogance, growing out of a

conviction of his superior knowledge, was transformed first into

respect and later into friendship, and even twenty years after,

whenever we drove from our Oderbruch village to the neighboring city

of Küstrin, he never had much to say about Crown Prince Fritz, or

Katte's decapitation, but regularly remarked: "Oh yes, Necker, who may

be called the father of the French Revolution, traced his ancestry

back to this city of Küstrin. I owe the information to Ferber, Captain

Ferber, whom we called Teinturier. It is a pity he could not give up

his _aqua vitæ_. At times it was pitiable."

Yes, pitiable it was, but not to us children, who, on the contrary,

always broke out into cheers whenever the captain, usually in rather

desolate costume, came staggering up the Great Church Street to find a

place to continue his breakfast. We used to follow close behind him

and tease and taunt him till he would try to catch and thrash one or

the other of us. Occasionally he succeeded; but I always escaped with

ease, because I chose for my teasings only days when it had rained a

short time before. Then there stood in the street between our house

and the church on the other side a huge pool of water, which became my

harbor of refuge. Holding my stilts at the proper angle, I sprang

quickly upon them as soon as I saw that Teinturier, in spite of his

condition, was close on my heels, and then I marched triumphantly into

the pool of water. There I stood like a stork on one stilt and

presented arms with the other, as I continued scoffing at him. Cursing

and threatening he marched away, the poor captain. But he took care

not to make good his threats, because in his good moments he did not

like to be reminded of the bad ones.

We had several playgrounds. The one we liked best perhaps was along

the "Bulwark," at the point where the side street branched off from

our house. The whole surroundings were very picturesque, especially in

the winter time, when the ships, stripped of their topmasts, lay at

their moorings, often in three rows, the last pretty far out in the

river. We were allowed to play along the "Bulwark" and practice our

rope-walking art on the stretched hawsers as far as they hung close to

the ground. Only one thing was prohibited. We were not allowed to go

on board the ships, much less to climb the rope ladders to the

mastheads. A very sensible prohibition. But the more sensible it was,

the greater was our desire to disregard it, and in the game of "robber

and wayfarer," of which we were all very fond, disregarding of this

prohibition was almost a matter of course. Furthermore, discovery lay

beyond the range of probability; our parents were either at their

"party" or invited to dine out. "So let's go ahead. If anybody tells

on us, he will be worse off than we."

So we thought one Sunday in April, 1831. It must have been about that

time of year, for I can still recall the clear, cold tone of the

atmosphere. On the ship there was not a sign of life, and on the

"Bulwark" not a human soul to be seen, which further proves to me that

it was a Sunday.

I, being the oldest and strongest, was the robber, of course. Of the

eight or ten smaller boys only one was in any measure able to compete

with me. That was an illegitimate child, called Fritz Ehrlich

(Honorable), as though to compensate him for his birth. These boys had

set out from the Church Square, the usual starting-point of the chase,

and were already close after me. I arrived at the "Bulwark" exhausted,

and, as there was no other way of escape, ran over a firm broad plank

walk toward the nearest ship, with the whole pack after me. This

naturally forced me to go on from the first ship to the second and

from the second to the third. There was no going any further, and if I

wished, in spite of this dilemma, to escape my enemies, there was

nothing left for me but to seek a hiding-place on the ship itself, or

at least a spot difficult of access. I found such a place and climbed

up about the height of a man to the top of the superstructure near the

cabin. In this superstructure was usually to be found, among other

rooms, the ship's cuisine. My climbing was facilitated by steps built

in the perpendicular wall. And there I stood then, temporarily safe,

gazing down as a victor at my pursuers. But the sense of victory did

not last long; the steps were there for others as well as for me, and

an instant later Fritz Ehrlich was also on the roof. Now I was indeed

lost if I foiled to find another way of escape. So, summoning all my

strength, I took as long a running start as the narrow space would

permit and sprang from the roof of the kitchen over the intervening

strip of water back to the second ship and then ran for the shore, as

though chased by all the furies. When I had reached the shore it was

nothing to run to the base in front of our house and be free. But I

was destined not to enjoy my happiness very long, for almost the very

moment I once more had solid ground beneath my feet I heard cries of

distress coming from the third and second ships, and my name called

repeatedly, which made me think something must have happened. Swiftly

as I had made for the shore over the noisy plank walk, I now hastened

back over it. There was no time to lose. Fritz Ehrlich had tried to

imitate my leap from the kitchen, but, failing to equal my distance,

had fallen into the water between the ships. And there the poor boy

was, digging his nails into the cracks in the ship's hull. Swimming

was out of the question, even if he knew anything about it. Besides,

the water was icy cold. To reach him from the deck with the means at

hand was impossible. So I grasped a piece of rope hanging from a rope

ladder and, letting myself down the side of the ship, tried every way

I could think of to lengthen my body as much as possible, till finally

Fritz was barely able to catch hold of my left foot, which reached

furthest down, while I held on above with my right hand. "Take hold,

Fritz!" But the doughty fellow, who may have realized that we should

both be lost if he really took a firm hold, contented himself with

laying his hand lightly upon the toe of my boot, and little as that

was, it nevertheless sufficed to keep his head above water. To be

sure, he may have been by natural endowment a "water treader," as they

are called; or he may have had the traditional luck of the

illegitimate, which seems to me on second thought more probable. In

any case he kept afloat till some people came from the shore and

reached a punt-pole down to him, while some others untied a boat

lying at Hannemann's Clapper and rowed it into the space between the

ships to fish him out. The moment that the saving punt-pole arrived

some man unknown to me reached down from the ladder, seized me by the

collar, and with a vigorous jerk hoisted me back on deck.

On this occasion not a word of reproach was uttered, though I could

not say as much of any other occasion of the kind. The people took

Fritz Ehrlich, drenched and freezing, to a house in the immediate

neighborhood, while the rest of us started home in a very humble frame

of mind. To be sure, I had also a feeling of elation, despite the fact

that my prospects for the future were not of the pleasantest. But my

fears were not realized. Quite the contrary. The following morning, as

I was starting to school, my father met me in the hall and stopped me.

Neighbor Pietzker, the good man with the nightcap, had been tattling

again, though with better intentions than usual.

"I've heard the whole business," said my father. "Why, in the name of

heaven, can't you be obedient! But we'll let it pass, since you

acquitted yourself so well. I know all the details. Pietzker across

the street ..."

Hereupon I was allowed to go to school.

SIR RIBBECK OF RIBBECK[3]

By THEODOR FONTANE

Sir Ribbeck of Ribbeck in Havelland--

A pear-tree in his yard did stand,

And in the golden autumn-tide,

When pears were shining far and wide,

Sir Ribbeck, when barely the bells struck noon,

Would stuff both his pockets with pears right soon.

If a boy in clogs would come his way,

He would call: "My boy, have a pear today?"

To a girl he'd call: "Little maid over there,

Now come here to me, and I'll give you a pear."

And thus he did ever, as years went by,

Till Sir Ribbeck of Ribbeck came to die.

He felt his end coming, 'twas autumn-tide,

And the pears were laughing, far and wide,

Then spoke Sir Ribbeck: "And now I must die.

Lay a pear in my grave, beside me to lie!"

From the double-roofed house in three days more,

Sir Ribbeck to his grave they bore.

All the peasants and cotters with solemn face,

Did sing: "Lord Jesus, in Thy Grace"--

And the children moaned with hearts of lead:

"Who will give us a pear? Now he is dead."

Thus moaned the children--that was not good--

Not knowing old Ribbeck as they should.

The new, to be sure, is a miser hard;

Over park and pear-tree he keeps stern guard.

But the old, who this doubtless could foretell,

Distrusting his son, he knew right well

What he was about when he bade them lay

A pear in his grave, on his dying day:

Out of his silent haunt, in the third year,

A little pear-tree shoot did soon appear.

And many a year now comes and goes,

But a pear-tree on the grave there grows,

And in the golden autumn-tide,

The pears are shining far and wide.

When a boy o'er the grave-yard wends his way,

The tree whispers: "Boy, have a pear today?"

To a girl it says: "Little maid over there,

Come here to me and I'll give you a pear."

So there are blessings still from the hand

Of Sir Ribbeck of Ribbeck in Havelland.

[Footnote 3: Translator: Margarete Münsterberg.]

THE BRIDGE BY THE TAY[4] (1879)

/#

"_When shall we three meet again_".--Macbeth

#/

"When shall we three meet again?"

"The dam of the bridge at seven attain!"

"By the pier in the middle. I'll put out amain

"The flames."

"I too."

"I'll come from the north."

"And I from the south."

"From the sea I'll soar forth."

"Ha, that will be a merry-go-round,

The bridge must sink into the ground."

"And with the train what shall we do

That crosses the bridge at seven?"

"That too."

"That must go too!"

"A bawble, a naught,

What the hand of man hath wrought!"

The bridgekeeper's house that stands in the north--

All windows to the south look forth,

And the inmates there without peace or rest

Are gazing southward with anxious zest;

They gaze and wait a light to spy

That over the water "I'm coming!" should cry,

"I'm coming--night and storm are vain--

I from Edinburg the train!"

And the bridgekeeper says: "I see a gleam

On the other shore. That's it, I deem.

Now mother, away with bad dreams, for see,

Our Johnnie is coming--he'll want his tree,

And what is left of candles, light

As if it were on Christmas night.

Twice we shall have our Christmas cheer--

In eleven minutes he must be here."

It is the train, with the gale it vies

And panting by the south tower flies.

"There's the bridge still," says Johnnie. "But that's all right,

We'll make it surely out of spite!

A solid boiler and double steam

Should win in such a fight, 'twould seem,

Let it rave and rage and run at its bent,

We'll put it down: this element!

And our bridge is our pride. I must laugh always

When I think back of the olden days,

And all the trouble and misery

That with the wretched boat would be;

And many cheerful Christmas nights

I spent at the ferryman's house--the lights

From our windows I'd watch and count them o'er,

And could not reach the other shore."

The bridgekeeper's house that stands in the north--

All windows to the south look forth,

And the inmates there without peace or rest

Are gazing southward with anxious zest:

More furious grew the winds' wild games,

And now, as if the sky poured flames,

Comes shooting down a radiance bright

O'er the water below.--Now again all is night.

"When shall we three meet again?"

"At midnight the top of the mountain attain!"

"By the alder-stem on the high moorland plain!"

"I'll come."

"And I too."

"And the number I'll tell."

"And I the names."

"I the torture right well."

"Whoo!

Like splinters the woodwork crashed in two."

"A bawble,--a naught,

What the hand of man hath wrought!"

[Footnote 4: Translator: Margarete Münsterberg.]

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