METZEROTT, SHOEMAKER
“_Omne vivum ex vivo._”
“What is your creed?”
“Jesus Christ.”
“What do you believe about him?”
“What we can. We count any belief in him—the smallest—better
than any belief about him—the greatest,—or about anything
else.”
NEW YORK
THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.
13 ASTOR PLACE
COPYRIGHT, 1889, BY
THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.
C. J. PETERS & SON,
TYPOGRAPHERS AND ELECTROTYPERS,
146 HIGH STREET, BOSTON.
DEDICATION.
“_Laborare est orare._”
TO
=The Clergy and the Workingmen of America=.
MAY THEY WORK AND PRAY TOGETHER
FOR THE COMING OF THE
KINGDOM OF CHRIST.
CONTENTS.
BOOK I.
_LOVE._
CHAPTER PAGE
I. KARL METZEROTT ATTENDS A KAFFEE KLATSCH 9
II. THE PASTOR’S BLUE APRON 23
III. A PESSIMIST 30
IV. DREAMS AND DREAMERS 38
V. “WHEN SORROWS COME” 50
VI. IN BATTALIONS 60
VII. “’VIDING” 72
VIII. MULTIPLICATION 80
IX. FORS FORTUNA 87
X. HOMINIBUS BONÆ VOLUNTATIS 95
XI. YGDRASIL 104
XII. “O YE ICE AND SNOW, BLESS YE THE LORD!” 114
XIII. PROSIT NEUJAHR 126
XIV. LEARNING AND TEACHING 133
BOOK II.
_ALTRUISM._
I. AFTER TWELVE YEARS 147
II. NEO-SOCIALISM 162
III. PRINCE LOUIS 174
IV. CINDERELLA’S SLIPPERS 182
V. “DAS DING-AN-SICH” 203
VI. “AN ENEMY CAME AND SOWED TARES” 211
VII. GRADUAL ENFRANCHISEMENT 221
VIII. RITTER FRITZ 239
IX. “THE ETYMOLOGY OF GRACE” 248
X. PREACHING AND PRACTICE 261
BOOK III.
_FLOOD AND FIRE._
I. “O’ER CRAG AND TORRENT, TILL THE NIGHT IS GONE,” 277
II. “POLLY, PUT THE KETTLE ON” 288
III. PANSIES 297
IV. VÆ VICTIS. 314
V. AN EXPERIMENT 328
VI. THE FRAGRANCE OF TEA-ROSES 334
VII. “THESE, THROUGH THEIR FAITH, RECEIVED NOT THE PROMISE” 346
VIII. “THAT, APART FROM US, THEY SHOULD NOT BE MADE PERFECT” 368
BOOK I.
LOVE.
METZEROTT, SHOEMAKER.
CHAPTER I.
KARL METZEROTT ATTENDS A KAFFEE KLATSCH.
Karl Metzerott, shoemaker, counted himself reasonably well-to-do in the
world. It was a favorite saying of his (though he was not greatly given
to sayings at any time, his days being so full of doings), that his
Socialist opinions were not based upon his own peculiar needs; and that,
when the Commune should supervene, as he fervently believed it must some
day, he, Karl Metzerott, would be numbered rather among its givers than
its receivers.
In truth, he had some reason for self-gratulation. He was young, strong,
and able to earn a fair living at his trade; and his wife,—but stop! We
have not come to her quite yet.
The shop where he bent over his lapstone for ten hours a day, excluding
meal times, was an odd-looking structure, in a poor quarter of a city
which we shall call Micklegard; and which, if any one should strive to
locate, we warn him that the effort will bring him only confusion of
face and dire bewilderment. For its features may be recognized, now
here, now there, like those mocking faces that peered at Ritter
Huldbrand through the mists of the Enchanted Forest.
The shoemaker’s dwelling contained but three rooms. The front, a
shingled frame building of one story, presented its pointed gable at the
street like a huge caret, denoting that all the sky and stars, perhaps
something further, were wanted by those beneath. This was the shop;
behind it were the kitchen, looking out upon a small square yard,
opening on a not over-clean alley; and a bedroom above, whose front
window peered over the gable roof, between the high blank walls of the
adjoining houses, while the opposite one kept watch from the rear: and
each, in its curtainless bareness, looked equally desolate and
unsatisfied.
It was on a cold, dreary November evening that the shoemaker put aside
his work somewhat earlier than usual, and, after carefully closing his
shutters, stepped through the ever-open door into his little kitchen,
which was almost as red-hot as the huge cooking-stove, filled with
bituminous coal, that occupied nearly half the tiny apartment. The other
half was over-filled by a gigantic four-post bedstead, on which two
corpulent feather-beds swelled nearly to the tester, and were overspread
by a patchwork quilt, gaudy of hue and startling in design. Fringed
dimity curtains hung from the tester, until their snow-white balls
caught the reflection from the glowing counterpane, when they were
snatched away, as if from the possible soil of contact, and fastened in
the middle of each side by an immense yellow rosette. Upon one side of
the stove stood an oil-cloth-covered table, which served equally for the
preparation and consumption of food; above it, a steep, narrow stair
wound upward to the room above; and on the other side of the kitchen,
basking in heat which would have consumed a salamander, were a small
old-fashioned candle-stand, half hidden by a linen cover, wrought in the
old Levitical colors of red and blue, and sustaining a cheap kerosene
lamp; a slat rocking-chair, with patchwork cushions, and a tiny old
woman bowed over a huge German Bible, bound in parchment, with a
tarnished steel clasp and corners, and heavy smooth yellow leaves.
As her son entered, Frau Metzerott lifted her brown, withered face, and
fixed her dark eyes and steel-rimmed spectacles upon him.
“You have quitted early this evening,” she said, in the _Platt-Deutsch_
dialect, which, with the High German of the book on her knee, was her
only mode of speech, though she had lived in America for nearly forty
years.
He nodded briefly, and then, as if by an afterthought, added, “It is the
evening of the Kaffee Klatsch at the Hall, and I will go there for my
supper. There is a little concert to-night, and dancing.”
“And a few pretty girls, Karlchen?”
He smiled, not ill-pleased, but vouchsafed no further remark as he
sprang up the difficult, crooked stairway to his bedroom.
The old woman looked after him with a slow shake of her head. “I wish he
would marry one of them,” she thought. “There is room for a wife, up
yonder, and it is hard doing the work alone. Besides, one cannot live
forever, and, when I am gone, who will make his coffee and his apple
cakes as he likes them?”
With a sigh, she fell to reading again.
It is quite possible that, on the sailing-vessel where her husband met
and won her, and which, to afford him ample time for the operation, was
obligingly blown out of her course so as to lengthen the voyage to
America some three months or so, Frau Metzerott had her fair share of
youthful attractiveness; but this had been swept from her by the scythe
of Father Time, and the storm and stress of life had left her no leisure
to cultivate the graces of old age. Of actual years she numbered barely
sixty, and the dark hair under her quaint black cap showed scarcely a
touch of gray; but the skin was as brown and wrinkled as a frost-nipped
russet apple; and rheumatism and the wash-tub together had so bowed her
once strong, erect figure, that, like the woman in Scripture, she could
in no wise lift up herself. She was dressed in a dark blue calico,
marked with small, white, crooked lines, a brown gingham apron, and a
small gay-colored plaid shawl over her rheumatic shoulders. Her feet
were incased in knitted woollen stockings, and black cloth shoes; and
her knotted brown fingers showed beneath black cloth mittens.
She did not trouble herself greatly with the preparations for her lonely
supper, when her son, in his Sunday coat, had left her for the Hall; a
fresh brew of coffee, a slice or two from the rye loaf, and a few
potatoes dressed with oil and vinegar, which had stood in her corner
cupboard since noon, supplied all her needs.
The dishes were washed, the kitchen tidied, after this frugal meal, and
the mother had settled to her knitting, when there came a knock at the
shop door. A pleased smile shone upon the old woman’s face as she
recognized the tap, and hastened to admit the person who had formerly
embodied her dreams of a daughter-in-law, who should be the instrument
of rest and ease to her old age. But the Anna Rolf who now passed
through the dark shop into the glowing kitchen, had been for two years a
comely young matron; Leppel Rolf, the stalwart young carpenter, having
wooed and won her, while Shoemaker Metzerott sat passively under his
lapstone. Rumor asserted that the fair Anna had been somewhat piqued by
this same passivity; but, however that may be, it was certainly no
love-lorn personage who now added the radiance of youth, health, and
beauty to the glow of the fire and the yellow light of the kerosene
lamp.
Yet Anna was not strictly a beauty, though her vivid coloring, sparkling
eyes, and overflowing vitality had gained her that reputation. She was
simply a tall, well-made woman, with an abundance of silky black hair, a
rich, dark complexion, and features which, like her figure, seemed
likely to be sharpened, rather than filled out, by advancing years. She
was dressed with a good deal of taste, in a new, black silk, with a
bunch of crimson roses in her bosom; and her greeting was interfused by
the consciousness of such array.
“So you are not at the Kaffee-Visite, Frau Metzerott?” she asked,
laughing a good deal. Laughing was very becoming to Anna; she had such
charming dimples, and strong, white, even teeth.
“Kaffee-Visite, indeed!” grumbled the old woman, taking, with her
withered hand to her wrinkled brow, a leisurely survey of her radiant
visitant. “What should an old woman like me do there? I drink my coffee
at home, and am thankful. But, _Du lieber Himmel!_ how fine you are,
Anna! A new silk dress?”
“Of course,” said Anna proudly, “and all my own doing, too. Not a penny
of Leppel’s money in it, from the neck to the hem. My earning and my
making, Frau Metzerott.”
“_Ach, Herr Gott!_” sighed the old woman, smoothing down the rich folds,
half enviously, not for herself, but for her son, whose wife might have
worn them; “but what a clever child you are, Aenchen.”
“You see,” said Anna, “it was this way. You remember when I was first
married we lived at his home, and when I had swept and dusted a bit,
there was no more to be done, for Frau Rolf lets no one help with the
cooking. I don’t believe she would trust an angel from heaven to work
down a loaf of Pumpernickel for her.” She laughed again, and Frau
Metzerott added a shrill cackle as her own contribution.
“So, as twirling my thumbs never agreed with me,” continued Anna, “I
just apprenticed myself to a dressmaker; for it is well to have two
strings to one’s bow, and Leppel’s life is no surer than any other
man’s.”
“But, Anna—?”
“Yes, I know, Mütterchen. It was a special arrangement, of course, not a
regular apprenticeship. I was to give so many hours a day to work I
already knew how to do, such as running up seams and working
buttonholes; and she was to teach me to cut and fit. She knew me, you
see, and wasn’t afraid of losing by the bargain.”
“I should think not!” said Frau Metzerott admiringly. She had heard the
story at least a dozen times, and never failed to adorn the right point
with the proper ejaculation.
“Well, then,” continued Anna, “what should happen but little Fritz came
to town, and any one but me would have had enough to do at home; but I
_never_ give up!”—she drew herself up proudly—“and so, since I finished
my course, I have earned enough money to buy this dress.”
“And yet you do so much besides,” said Frau Metzerott.
“Since his father and mother went to live with their son in the West,”
said Anna, “I do all my own work, make my own clothes and Fritz’s, and
take in sewing besides.”
“What a girl you are!” sighed the old woman. “But why are you home so
early from the Hall to-night?”
“Leppel is gone to New York on business. There is some new machine he
wants to look at. I wish he would let them all alone, and attend to his
day’s work. I did not bargain to marry an inventor,” said Anna
discontentedly.
“It is expensive going to New York,” said the old woman, shaking her
head.
“It is expensive inventing,” said the young one, her brilliant face
darkened by a shadow of real anxiety. “But, however, he must have his
own way, and the money is his. So he was off from the Hall, when he had
had his supper, and of course,” with a conscious laugh—“he would not
leave me there without him.”
“No, no,” said the Frau, her withered lips expanding into a toothless
smile, “you are much too pretty for that, Aenchen.”
“The new pastor was there,” said Anna, when she had playfully shaken the
old woman by her bowed shoulders, in acknowledgment of this remark,
“and, I think, the Frau Pastorin that will be.”
“So?” exclaimed the old woman eagerly; “who is she, Anna?”
“She came over on the same steamer as the Herr Pastor, and her name is
Dorothea Weglein. It seems she had a sweetheart here in Micklegard, and
came over to be married to him; but when she arrived he had died in the
mean time, of something or other, very sudden, I don’t know what.”
“Poor child! And the Herr Pastor is courting her?”
Anna shrugged her shoulders. “It looks like it,” she said. “It seems she
got a service place after her _Schatz_ died. The Herr Pastor could do
better than that. But some one else was taken with her baby face and
frightened ways, Frau Metzerott. Your son was eating her up with his
eyes when I came away.”
“Did her _Schatz_ leave any money behind him?” asked the Frau.
Anna laughed a little shrilly, as she moved towards the door. “You know
they weren’t married, Mütterchen; so, if he did, it probably went to his
relations. Well, it is two years since it happened; she will be easily
consoled. Good-night, Fritz will be wanting me. I only ran over to tell
you the news,” and she was gone, leaving the shop and kitchen darker and
stiller than ever, by contrast.
Karl Metzerott, meanwhile, had walked briskly enough to meet his fate,
but with small thought of new Herr Pastors or possible Frau Pastorins.
He was his mother’s own son in appearance, every one had said, when both
were younger; at present, the resemblance was less striking. Karl was a
man of nearly thirty, who looked older than his years; of average
height, strongly and squarely made, the shoulders slightly rounded by
his occupation, the head a little large, with a fine, square brow, and a
thick covering of coarse black hair. The eyes were keen and clear, the
features strong and rugged. The skin was dark, not particularly fine,
but clear and healthful; he wore neither beard nor mustache, and his
manner showed no slightest consciousness of himself or his Sunday
clothes.
But it is best that we should precede him, rapid as are his steps, and
gain some knowledge of the scene whither he is bound. The Maennerchor of
Micklegard held its collective head rather higher than any similar
association in the city. In its own opinion, its members, or the
majority of them, were more aristocratic, its club-house better fitted
up, its auditorium larger, and its inventive genius greater, than those
of any contemporary. Nor shall I attempt to disprove this innocently
vain assumption on the part of the Maennerchor, though vanity, whether
innocent or the reverse, is said by some to be a part of the German
national character. Others doubt whether such a thing exists as a
national type of character. My own individual opinion is that, so far as
it _does_ exist, the Germans are no vainer, _au fond_, than any other
people; but that what vanity they possess is of a surface, childlike
type, more quickly recognized, but rather less offensive, than the
vanity of, say, an Englishman.
But to return to the Maennerchor.
The managers had, of late, at the instigation of the Ladies’ Chorus,
issued invitations to a Kaffee-Visite, as it was officially termed;
familiarly known as a “Kaffee Klatsch,” or Coffee Scandal. The ladies
were to meet at three o’clock, said the program (and we assure our
readers that we translate from a veritable document), in the club-house
parlor; from three to five was to be theirs alone.
“Needle-work, Gossip, Stocking-knitting,” said the program, with a
shriek of triumph. At five was to be served the “Ladies’ Coffee;” from
6.30 to 8.30, “Supper for Gentlemen;” and this exceedingly unsociable
arrangement having been carried to its lame and impotent conclusion, the
concert, or _Abendunterhaltung_, would begin at nine, under the auspices
of the Ladies’ Chorus.
In its primary aspect, the Kaffee-Visite was emphatically what is
jocularly known as a “Dutch treat.” The refreshments were in charge of
two or more ladies, in rotation, called the _Committee_, who undertook
all the expense and took charge of the modest receipts, fifteen cents
being the charge for each person’s supper. The receipts and expenses
usually balanced with tolerable evenness, the gains of the _Committee_
never amounting to a sum which compensated for their trouble, while
anxiety of mind lest the incomings should not equal the outlay was
written on their foreheads during the early part of the evening.
When Karl Metzerott arrived on the occasion we have selected for
description, the “Ladies’ Coffee” was over, and the little parlor was
full of uproarious _Herren_, the ladies having repaired to the Hall
upstairs. All parties were full of true German enjoyment, heightened by
the independence and freedom from sense of obligation only possible at a
real “Dutch treat.” Everybody was host, everybody was guest; the
_Committee_ waited on the tables, and passed small jokes, with the
coffee and cold tongue, and the _convives_ roared with laughter as they
disposed of the viands with a business-like rapidity, which, in part,
accounted for the smallness of the profits.
Strains of music had already begun to resound from the Hall, as
Metzerott finished his repast.
“The girls are enjoying themselves,” he said, smiling, to his neighbor,
who happened to be Leppel Rolf; but an obese little man opposite called
out,—
“Enjoying? But how can they, with no partners to whirl them around? When
I was your age, Karl, would I have been so lazy? No, my arm would have
been round the prettiest waist in the lot long ago. Hurry, lazy fellow!”
There was a roar from the tableful at this sally, for the speaker was
well known as the shyest of men where “ladies” were in question. It was
even asserted that he had never found courage to ask the decisive
question of his wife, but that the marriage had been arranged by his
mother.
“If there are no partners at all up yonder,” replied Metzerott, “there
is no need to hurry. They’ll wait till I come.”
His voice was a deep bass, rich and mellow; his enunciation slow but
distinct, his pronunciation and accent those of the public schools,
aided by care and thought at home. A shrill falsetto voice followed his
reply with:—
“_Vanitas vanitatum_. If you have so much vanity, Herr Metzerott, I must
make you a pastoral visit.”
Karl turned, and leisurely surveyed the speaker. The remark struck him
as in a degree personal, from one whom he had met for the first time
half an hour before. The Rev. Otto Schaefer, however, as he stood under
the full light of the parlor chandelier, seemed rather to court than to
avoid scrutiny. He was a man who could be best described by the one
word, insignificant. His height was five feet one, his proportions thin
to meagreness, his hair and beard of scant quantity, and not even so red
as they might have been; his voice thin and unmusical. He had been in
America only two years, in Micklegard not a fortnight; had recently lost
his wife, and was said to be looking out for another, in which search,
though the possessor of six small children and a limited income, there
was no doubt he would very soon be successful.
“But you know I’m a free-thinker,” said Metzerott.
The Rev. Otto laughed. “I’ll soon cure you of that,” he said. “_I_ have
studied nothing else but the Bible all my life, and _I_ believe in it,
so why can’t you?”
“Because I _have_ studied other things,” replied Karl dryly, whereupon
he was dragged away by Rolf and the obese little man, both crying, “No
theology, no religion to-night; let us dance.”
Their progress towards the Hall being somewhat retarded by Karl’s
playful resistance, they found, upon reaching it, that the Herr Pastor
had preceded them, and was making a sort of triumphal progress up
through its very fair proportions; shaking hands right and left with the
lambs of his flock. At the end of the Hall, close by the stage, stood
the piano, where the wife of the obese little man was rattling off a
waltz with considerable spirit. The floor was full of whirling
_Tänzerinen_, here and there embraced by a _Tänzer_. Metzerott, who was
really, like all Germans, fond of dancing, made his way to a group near
the piano, among whom Anna Rolf’s tall form was conspicuous.
“Dance!” she cried, in answer to his request, “why, of course I will;
I’d dance with the Wild Huntsman if he were here to ask me.”
“I’ve heard of him,” said Karl. “My mother believes in him as she does
in”—
He hesitated, and Anna playfully held up her finger. “No wicked
speeches,” she said; “your mother is a good woman, much better than
you.”
“Oh! she’s good enough,” the man said carelessly. “I don’t see what that
has to do with it, though; any one can be good who tries.”
“Then I’m not any one,” said Anna; “for I never was good in my life, and
I’m sure I’ve tried.”
“Leppel thinks you are good,—the best of wives,” said Karl, with an
indulgent smile.
“Oh! I’m good to _him_,” replied Anna, “and so I ought, for he is the
best of husbands; then I am clever, industrious, economical, and
good-tempered, I know very well; but I’m not religious, though I should
like to be.”
“Religion is all nonsense, and the religious man”—and here he was
suddenly struck dumb.
“Ah! you dare not speak slanders against religion, so near the Herr
Pastor,” said Anna, looking up into his face with amused curiosity, as
they whirled away again, Karl waltzing on mechanically, because in his
confused state of mind it was easier to do so than to stop. “That girl
in gray is the one they say he will marry. Eh? you are dancing horribly,
Karl;” as they collided violently with another couple. “Suppose we
stop.”
She dropped into the nearest chair, and fanned herself briskly with her
handkerchief, while her partner stood aside, and mentally regained his
feet, after the shock that had overthrown him. Yet what was it after
all? Had he lived to his present age without seriously loving; pleased
here or there, it might be, by a voice or a face, which he forgot the
next moment, to be thus vanquished in the twinkling of an eye? It was
impossible! Why, he could not even recall, now that she was beyond his
immediate vision, a single feature; only a cloud of golden curls on a
low, childlike brow, and a soft gray tint surrounding her that might
have been an angel’s robe, he thought, if there were angels.
Poor Karl! and above all poor Dora! For the gray frock had been pinched
and saved for as a wedding dress, if the young man whom she had crossed
the ocean to find had but lived to welcome her. Anna had guessed aright,
that his savings had gone to his relations; and Dora, in the midst of
her grief and bewilderment, had been forced to look out for some way of
supporting herself. For two years she had been nursery governess to two
riotous boys, who adored and tyrannized over her; and under whose
vigorous kicks and caresses her nature had slowly recovered from the
shock it had received. Yet she had with difficulty persuaded herself to
accept an invitation to accompany the wife of the obese little man to
the Kaffee Klatsch this afternoon; but, that difficulty having been
surmounted, wearing her wedding dress followed as a thing of course. It
cost her a pang, no doubt, but she had nothing else.
Just how the rest of the evening passed, Karl Metzerott could never
after give a coherent account, even to himself. Somehow, somewhere, he
was introduced to Dora; he sat near her during the concert, silent, and
apparently not looking at her, yet he knew her features well by that
time, and could almost have specified the number of her eyelashes.
Then he took her home, actually superseding the Herr Pastor in so doing.
They talked but little on the way; when they had nearly reached her
home, Karl said,—
“You are not betrothed to the Herr Pastor, Fräulein Dora?”
“No, indeed, he has never asked me,” she replied, laughing and blushing
a little, but looking up into his face with childlike, innocent
directness. Perhaps little Dora was scarcely the beauty that Karl
fancied her; Anna’s description, “a baby face, and frightened ways,” was
much more accurate than any he could have given. But her large, blue
eyes, with their long, golden lashes, were really beautiful; and nothing
could have so moved the man beside her as the sight of that shy
timidity, changed into calm reliance on his strength.
“But you would not marry him, _nicht wahr_? He is poor, he is a fool,
and he has six children.”
“And he is very ugly,” said naughty Dora, deserting, without a pang, her
oldest friend in America.
“He is very ugly indeed,” said Karl Metzerott, in a tone of deep
conviction; “God be thanked therefor.”
And Dora, though she laughed and blushed still deeper, found it most
convenient not to inquire his exact meaning.