A lovely, fine night had followed the day; the moon shone above all
Europe and its peoples. All the clouds had been driven away and now lay
loweringly on the Atlantic Ocean: all who could sleep, slept; but not
everyone could sleep.
Bridal night and night of death in one! Through the woods the brooks
flashed their silver sparks; the great streams flowed on, calm
and shining. The woods, meadows and fields, the lakes, rivers and
brooks--they were all in full harmony with the moon, but the odd
pygmy-folk, men, in their cities and villages, far from being in
harmony with themselves, left much to be desired in that respect.
If she had not been the "gentle" moon, if she had not had a good
reputation to maintain, she would not have lighted mankind, in spite
of all the poets and lovers. She was gentle, and shone;--moreover,
perhaps, she was touched by the confidence of the municipal
authorities, who depended on her, and on her account did not light the
street lamps.
She shone with the same brilliance and calm on all Europe--on the poor,
tumultuous city of Paris where so many dead still lay unburied and so
many wounded wrestled with death, and on the tiny town of Neustadt in
its wide, peaceful valley. She glanced softly into the over-crowded
hospitals and morgues;--she glanced softly into the traveling-coach
of Charles X. and not less softly into the low chamber in which lay
Christine Unwirrsch with her boy.
The child slept, but the mother lay awake and could not sleep for
thinking of what she had heard when she came home so tired after her
hard work.
It had taken her a long time to understand the confused report that
Hans and Auntie Schlotterbeck had given; she was a simple woman who
needed time before she could grasp anything that lay beyond her daily
work and her poor household. To be sure, when once she did understand
a thing she could analyze it properly and intelligently and consider
and weigh the pros and cons of every detail; but she could scarcely
understand in its broadest outlines this, her child's, aspiration out
of the darkness toward the light.
[Illustration: THE COMMANDER OF THE FORTRESS
_Permission Franz Hanfstaengl_ KARL SPITZWEG]
She only knew that in this child the same hunger had now made itself
apparent, from which her Anton had suffered, that hunger which she did
not understand and for which she nevertheless had such respect, that
hunger which had so tormented her beloved, sainted husband, the hunger
for books and for the marvelous things which lay hidden in them. The
years which had passed since her husband had been carried to the grave
had not blurred a single remembrance. In the heart and mind of the
quiet woman the good man still lived with all his peculiarities, even
the smallest and most insignificant of which death had transfigured
and transformed into a good quality. How he paused in his work
to gaze for minutes into the glass globe in front of his lamp in
self-forgetfulness, how on his walks, on a beautiful holiday, he would
suddenly stand still and look at the ground and at the blue dome
above, how at night he woke and sat awake for hours in bed, murmuring
unconnected words--all that was not, and never could be, forgotten.
How the good man had toiled on at his trade between sighs and flushes
of joy, cheerful and depressed moods,--how in his rare leisure hours
he had studied so hard and, above all, what hopes he had set on his
son and with what wonderful aspirations he had dreamt of this son's
future--all lay clear before Christine Unwirrsch's soul.
The mother raised herself on her pillow and looked over at her child's
bed. The moonlight played on the counterpane and the pillows and
transfigured the face of the sleeping boy who had cried himself to
sleep after telling his sorrowful tale, and on whose cheeks the traces
of tears were still to be seen, although he now smiled again in his
slumber and knew no more of the day's trouble. Round about the town of
Neustadt the birds of night stirred in the bushes and along the edges
of the streams and ponds; the night-watchman's hoarse voice sounded now
near, now far; the clocks of the two churches quarreled about the right
time and were of very different opinions; all the bats and owls of
Neustadt were very lively, knowing their hours exactly and never making
a mistake of a minute; mice squeaked in the wall of the bedroom and one
mouse rustled under Mrs. Christine's bed; a bluebottle that could not
sleep either flew about buzzing, now here, now there, now banging his
head against the window, now against the wall and seeking in vain for
some way out; in the next room the grandfather's chair behind the stove
cracked and there was such a weird and ghostly pattering and creeping
about in the attic that it was hard to adhere to the soothing belief in
"cats." Mrs. Christine Unwirrsch, who, being gifted with a foreboding
mind, usually had a keen and fearful ear for all the noises and sounds
of the night and who did not in the least doubt the penetration of the
spirit-world into her bedroom, had no time in this night to listen to
these things and get goose-flesh in consequence. Her heart was too
full of other matters and the ghosts that roam between earth and heaven
and play at will on the nerves of men had no power over her. The mother
felt her responsibility for the destiny of her child weigh heavy upon
her and although she was a poor, ignorant woman she was not therefore
less concerned; indeed, her concern was perhaps greater because her
idea of her child's desire was incomplete and inadequate.
She looked long at sleeping Hans till the moon glided on in the
firmament and the rays slipped from the bed and slowly retired toward
the window. When at last complete darkness filled the room she sighed
deeply and whispered:
"His father wished it, and no one shall set himself against his
father's will. God will surely help me, poor, stupid woman that I am,
to make it come out right. His father wished it and the child shall
have his way according to his father's will."
She rose quietly from her couch and crept out of the room with bare
feet, so as not to wake the sleeping boy. In the living room she lit
the lamp. She sat down for a few moments on her husband's work-chair
and wiped the tears from her eyes; and then she carried the light to
that chest in the corner of which we have already told, knelt down and
opened the ancient lock which offered obstinate resistance to the key
as long as possible.
When the lid was laid back the room was filled with the scent of clean
linen and dried herbs, rosemary and lavender. This chest contained
everything precious and valuable that Mrs. Christine possessed and
carefully she controlled herself so that no tear should fall into it.
Carefully she laid back the white and colored linen, smoothing each
fold as she did so; carefully she laid aside the little boxes with
old, trivial knickknacks, broken, cheap jewelry, loose amber beads,
bracelets of colored glass beads and similar treasures of the poor and
of children, until, nearly at the bottom of the chest, she came to
what she was seeking in the stillness of the night. With timid hand
she first pulled out a little case with a glass cover; her head sank
lower as she opened it. It contained Master Anton's book of songs and
on the book lay a dried myrtle wreath. It was as if distant bells, the
tones of an organ trembled through the night and through the soul of
the kneeling woman; Auntie Schlotterbeck did not see the dead alive
more clearly and distinctly than Christine Unwirrsch saw them at that
moment. She folded her hands above the open case and her lips moved
softly. No other prayer came to her mind but "Our Father" and that
sufficed.
A second case stood beside the first, an old box made of oak, trimmed
with iron, with a strong lock, an ingenious piece of work belonging
to the seventeenth century, which had been in the possession of the
Unwirrsches for generations. Mrs. Christine carried this box to the
table and before she opened it she put everything back in its place in
the chest; she loved order in all things and did nothing in haste even
now.
It was a bright light that the little lamp and the hanging glass globe
gave, but the box on the table, black with age as it was, outshone them
both, its contents spoke louder of the preciousness of parents' love
than if its price had been announced by a thousand trumpets in all the
marketplaces of the world. The lock turned, the lid sprang open: money
was in the box!--much, much money--silver coins of all kinds and even
one gold piece wrapped in tissue paper. Rich people might well have
smiled at the treasure but if they had had to pay the true value of
every thaler and florin all their riches might not have sufficed to
buy the contents of the black box. Hunger and sweat had been paid for
every coin and a thousand noble thoughts and beautiful dreams clung to
each. A thousand hopes lay in the dark box, Master Anton had hidden his
purest self in it, and Christine Unwirrsch had added all her love and
her faithfulness.
Who, just looking at the scanty heap of well-fingered pieces of money,
could have imagined all this?
A little book, consisting of a few sheets of gray paper stitched
together, lay beside the money; the father's hand had filled the
first pages with letters and figures but then death had closed worthy
Master Anton's account and for many years now the mother had done the
bookkeeping, by faith, without letters and figures, and the account
still balanced.
How often had Christine Unwirrsch gone hungry to bed, how often had
she suffered all possible hardships without yielding to the temptation
to reach out her hand for the black box! In every form distress had
approached her in her miserable widowhood, but she had resisted with
heroism. Even without letters and figures, she could render her account
at any moment;--it was not her fault if the happy, honorable future
which the dead man had dreamt of for his son did not rise out of the
black box.
Mrs. Christine sat in front of the table for more than an hour that
night, counting on her fingers and calculating, while across the
street in a little back room of the junk-dealer's house a man also sat
figuring and counting. Samuel Freudenstein, too, was sitting up for his
sleeping boy's sake. More than a few rolls of gold pieces, more than a
few rolls of silver pieces lay before him; he had more to throw into
his child's scales of fortune than the poor widow.
"I will arm him with everything that is a weapon," he murmured. "They
shall find him prepared in every way, and he shall laugh at them. He
shall become a great man; he shall have everything that he wants. I was
a slave, he shall be a master among a strange people, and I will live
in his life. He has a good head, a sharp eye; he will make his way. He
shall think of his father when he has reached the height; I will live
in his life."
The widow divided her scanty day's wages into two parts. The greater
part fell into the oak box and was added to the other savings of
long years of toil, and the small coins gave a clear ring. Samuel
Freudenstein added more than a hundred shining thalers to his son's
fortune; no one in Kröppel Street as much as suspected what a rich man
the junk-dealer had again gradually grown to be.
The moonlight had entirely disappeared from the widow's bedroom when
she crept shiveringly back from the living room. Hans Unwirrsch still
slept soundly and not even the kiss that his mother pressed on his
forehead waked him. The lamp too went out and Mrs. Christine soon slept
as peacefully as her child. About the bed of King Solomon stood sixty
strong men with swords in their hands, skilled in battle, "for the sake
of the fear in the night;" but at the head of the widow and her child
there stood a spirit that kept better watch than all the armed men in
Israel.
Throughout nearly the whole summer the battle with Uncle Grünebaum went
on. It was long since the world had seen such an obstinate cobbler.
Tears, pleadings, and remonstrances did not soften, touch or convince
him. A man who could hold his own with the Seven Wise Masters, in every
respect, could not be moved from his standpoint so easily by two silly
women and a stupid boy. He had resolved in his shaggy, manly breast
that Hans Unwirrsch, like all the other Unwirrsches and Grünebaums,
should become a shoemaker and with a mocking whistle he repulsed every
attack on his understanding, his reason and his heart. Scarcely a day
passed on which he did not with his piping rouse Auntie Schlotterbeck
from her calm. The more irritated the women grew, the hotter in their
arguments, the sharper in their words, the more melodious did Uncle
Grünebaum become. He generally accompanied the beginning of every new
discussion with a valiant, warlike tune and brought the conversation to
a vain conclusion with the most melting, yearning melodies.
"Master Grünebaum, Master Grünebaum," cried Auntie, "if the child is
unhappy later it will be your fault--your fault alone! I have never
seen a man like you in all my born days."
Whether Prince Eugene's song was sung as an answer to these words was
open to doubt: Master Grünebaum whistled it like "himself a Turk."
"Oh, Niklas," cried his sister, "what kind of a man are you? He is such
a good child and his teachers are so satisfied with him and his father
wanted him to learn everything that there is to learn. Think of Anton,
Niklas, and do give in, please do, I beg you to."
Uncle Grünebaum did not give in for a long time yet. He expressed the
thought that cobbling was also a fine, meditative, learned business and
that "trade is the mother of money," very strikingly by means of the
melody: "The linen-weavers have a fine old guild," but refused to say
more.
"That's right, go on whistling!" screamed Auntie Schlotterbeck with her
arms angrily akimbo. "Go on whistling, you fool! But I tell you, you
may stand on your head, the child shall go to the great schools and
the universities nevertheless. Sit there like a blind bullfinch and go
on whistling. Cousin Christine, don't cry, don't show him you care,
it only gives him a wicked pleasure. Such a tyrant! Such a barbarian!
And after all, it's your child, not his! But the Lord will set things
right, I know, so do take your apron from your eyes. Keep on whistling
now, Master Grünebaum, but remember, you'll answer for it by and by;
think what you will say to Master Anton up above when the time comes!"
It seemed as if when the time came Uncle Grünebaum intended to justify
himself to his sainted brother-in-law by the beautiful song: "A
squirrel sat on the thorny hedge"--at least he whistled it with pensive
emotion, and twiddled his thumbs in accompaniment.
"Oh, Niklas, what a hard-hearted man you are!" sobbed his sister.
"Auntie is right, you will never be able to justify yourself for what
you are doing to your brother-in-law's child----"
"And it's better to be a rag-picker than such a shiftless cobbler who
wastes the time God has given him at the beer table in the Red Ram. And
a creature like that wants to balk and kick out behind if a poor child
wants to get ahead! If he'd only wash his hands and comb his hair, the
fellow! I'd like to see anybody that would want to take him for an
example and a model. There isn't anybody else like him and a man like
that wants to keep others from washing themselves and being an honor
to their parents. But I build on God, Master Grünebaum. He'll show you
what you really are. It's really absurd that a man wants to play the
guardian who can't even guard himself."
The melody "Kindly moon, thou glidest softly" must have a very soothing
effect indeed on human feelings; Uncle Grünebaum whistled it meltingly
as long as Auntie Schlotterbeck continued to speak, and however great
may have been the anger that boiled in his breast, the world saw
nothing of it. When Hans Unwirrsch came home from school with his bag
of books he found the two women in a very excited state with scarlet
faces, and his uncle quite composed, even-tempered and calm;--he did
indeed guess what they had been talking about again but he seldom
learnt any of the details of the discussion.
Usually Uncle Grünebaum took his departure while whistling a hymn or
some other solemn air and at the same time pinching poor Hans' ear with
a grin; Mephistopheles might have envied him his smile and after he had
gone the women generally dropped on the nearest chairs, exhausted and
broken in spirit, and for several hours were incapable of believing in
human and divine justice.
In the cornfields the scythes flashed and swished; Uncle Grünebaum had
still not given in. Without the aid of any wind all kinds of fruit
detached themselves from the branches and fell to the ground; Uncle
Grünebaum held more obstinately to his opinion than ever. Silver
threads spread over the earth and wavered through the air: Uncle
Grünebaum did not waver with them but laughed scornfully from his
low three-legged stool. The foliage in the woods changed daily to an
ever gayer hue, but Uncle Grünebaum's view of the world and life did
not change. Moses Freudenstein boasted more and more proudly in his
triumph, and Hans Unwirrsch's expression grew more and more miserable
and depressed. The song-birds chirped their last melodies and prepared
for their flight to the South: Uncle Grünebaum joined in the chirping,
but he put his trust in the psalmist's promise "so shalt thou dwell
in the land and verily thou shalt be fed," for he was too thoroughly
convinced that he was indispensable in Neustadt, in the "Red Ram" and
in his family. No _Deus ex machina_ descended to bring aid to poor Hans
and so he finally had no alternative but to help himself. He carried
out a plan which had required a long time to mature in his mind, thus
throwing Auntie Schlotterbeck and his mother into giddy amazement and
putting his stiff-necked Uncle Grünebaum entirely beside himself.
One Sunday morning at the beginning of September Professor Blasius
Fackler, doctor of philosophy and one of the lights of the local
"Gymnasium," ruled alone in his house and felt safe and comfortable, as
he seldom did, in his study.
His wife with her two daughters was at church, in all probability
praying to God to forgive her for the agitated hours which she
occasionally caused the "good man," that is, her lord and master. The
maid had absented herself on private business; the house was still, it
was indeed a gray day that looked into the study filled with clouds of
tobacco smoke, but the joyful soul of the professor roamed over a blue
welkin with the song-book of Quintus Valerius Catullus and drank in the
ecstatic moments of freedom,--
Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus,
rumoresque senum severiorum
omnes unius aestimemus assis.
He strolled in the shade of the pomegranates and pines by the lake of
Benakus on the blessed peninsula of Sirmio and the sparkling rhythmic
waves of the Roman poet washed into nothingness all thoughts of the
present and of that Lesbia who at that moment was singing sharply and
shrilly in the church. He failed to hear the sound of the doorbell, did
not catch the timidly soft tread that mounted the stairs; he was not
roused till something scratched and tapped gently at his door. Quickly
the Latin rogue Catullus hid himself under a heap of more serious
scholarly equipment, and with dignity the professor and doctor of
philosophy called:
"Come in!"
No one accepted the invitation and it was repeated more loudly, but
this time too without success. Bewildered, the scholar rose from his
chair, drew his long dressing-gown tight about him, and now with still
greater amazement admitted a tiny laddie of about eleven years into
his study, a laddie who trembled in every joint and over whose cheeks
the tears ran down. No one was present at the interview that this
visitor had with Professor Fackler and we cannot give the details of
the conversation. Only this we can say, that when Lesbia returned from
church with her two daughters, the charming pledges of the "thousands
and thousands of kisses," she found her husband in a very pleased mood.
He did not give her the attention which she expected from him but
continued to straddle up and down the room and to murmur:
"I declare! A plucky little fellow! _Puer tenax propositi!_ He shall
have his way! By all the gods of Olympus he shall attain what he
desires and may it be of benefit to him!"
"What shall be of benefit? Of benefit to whom, Blasius?" asked Lesbia,
laying down her hymn-book.
"Someone shall be taken by the heel and dipped into the Styx, dearest,
so that he may be proof against the afflictions of life and emerge
victorious from the battle of men."
"This is one of your silly, incomprehensible days, Blasius," cried
Mrs. Fackler, with vexation and looked as if she would have liked to
give her husband a good shaking. Fortunately, however, at that moment
Eugenia and Cornelia came running in and hung on their father's arms
with all kinds of childish questions and requests. The latter pointed
to their mother and quoted with hollow voice:
"Jove tonante, fulgurante, comitia populi habere nefas,"
drew on his coat, put on his hat, took his stick, went out and--paid a
visit to Uncle Grünebaum. Uncle Nikolaus Grünebaum, however, to his own
"highest perplexity" made a long, beautiful speech that afternoon in
Kröppel Street to the accompaniment of some most excellent coffee which
Auntie Schlotterbeck had brewed, and expressed himself more or less in
the following expectoration:
"Inasmuch as a cobbler is a noble and honorable calling yet
nevertheless all the children of men cannot be cobblers, but there must
also be other people, tailors, bakers, carpenters, masons and such
like, so that every feeling and sentiment may be provided for and no
sense be left without its necessary protection. But also because there
are other wants in the world and man needs much before and prior to the
time when he needs nothing more, there are also advocates and doctors
more than too many and in addition professors and pastors more than
enough. But God lets things go on as they will and the devil takes one
and all, odd and even, which is to say that a boy who wants to choose
his occupation must look far ahead and consider carefully in which
direction his bent lies, for it has happened more than once that an
ass has thought that he could play the lute. But it isn't everyone who
can make a boot either, it isn't as easy as it looks. Now there are
present here Christine Unwirrsch, widow of the late Anton Unwirrsch,
secondly the unmarried spinster Schlotterbeck, also a very good
specimen of sound common sense and natural ability. Moreover, there is
present, Master Nik'las Grünebaum, who am not up in the air, either,
but without wanting to boast, stand squarely on my feet. Before these
three there stands the individual whom the matter concerns, Hans Jakob
Nik'las Unwirrsch, who at least has demonstrated himself to be a youth
of courage and who has sought to trip up his dearest relatives behind
their backs. Such a little bantam!"
Both women raised their hands to beseech the blessing of heaven on the
youthful genius, Hans Unwirrsch; but his uncle continued.
"When the professor stood in front of me all of a sudden, I said to
myself, 'Steady, Grünebaum, hold on to your chair!' Such a boy! But the
professor is an estimable, reasonable, pleasant gentleman and so the
long and short of the matter is this, that from half past eleven this
morning on, I will have nothing more to do with it and will wash my
hands."
"In which you do very well, Master Grünebaum," said Auntie
Schlotterbeck.
"And so things may go as they like, the devil takes both odd and even!"
concluded Uncle Grünebaum.
"Nik'las!" cried Mrs. Christine, irritated, "I hope that my son will
never have to do with the devil either in an odd or even way, and as
for letting things go as they like, I hope he won't do that either."
"Come, come, don't be sacrilegious and touchy," growled her brother.
"Well then, what I and Professor Fackler wanted to say, as an
over-learned individual is still a man after all, you shall have your
way, my boy, as far as we are concerned. Enough, I have said it! And I
don't suppose the highly laudable profession of cobbling will lose any
miracle in you, scamp."
The mother's feelings found relief in a stream of tears, Auntie
Schlotterbeck nearly melted away with joyful emotion; Hans Unwirrsch
was never able afterwards to give an account of his feelings in that
hour, either to himself or to others. But the person who remained
entirely unmoved and calm, or seemed to, was Uncle Grünebaum. He
complacently pressed the tobacco down in his short pipe with his
cobbler's thumb, closed the lid carefully like a man who has done a
good work and who at most will allow the credit that rightly belongs to
him to be entered in the great ledger of heaven.
But however he might appear, he had lost his power over his nephew and
could never regain it. From the moment when Hans Unwirrsch gave the
rudder of his life such an effective jerk with his own small hand, he
confronted the worthy master with a fully enfranchised will of his
own and the latter's amazement and bewilderment were only the more
boundless, the greater the equanimity that he displayed.
Destinies had to be fulfilled and Hans Unwirrsch started on the road
that Anton Unwirrsch had not been allowed to travel. The following noon
Auntie Schlotterbeck met the deceased master; he was bent and hung his
head in his usual manner, but he smiled contentedly.
SUMMARY OF CHAPTER VII
[Hans and Moses now worked on from class to class through the
"Gymnasium." But the way that led through the vocabulary, declinations
and conjugations to the open and sunny clearness of classical antiquity
was considerably more difficult for Hans than for Moses, for the former
wanted to realize the beauty of the classic age in his imagination,
while the latter contented himself with the effort to understand it and
to master the languages in which it has come down to us. But in every
act of mental work Moses' highest aim was to forge weapons with which
to meet the world. He despised or smiled at everyone who did not, like
himself, sacrifice all other qualities in order to forge and whet the
keen-edged sword of reason, and excepted neither his "half-childish"
father nor his good-natured friend. Hans Unwirrsch, on the contrary,
did not forget what he owed to his parents' self-denial and heroism,
and all the sacrifices that poverty demanded of him became for him
precious duties, as is ever the case with noble natures. Professor
Fackler remained his paternal friend and also put him in the way of
making his first earnings by recommending him as a tutor for the two
sons of the director of a government office named Trüffler. At the same
time this afforded Hans the opportunity to see something of so-called
"higher social life." Although it was only with the deepest humility
that he raised his eyes to the goddesses of this other world, the
director's daughters, yet there were times when he was in danger of
despising Uncle Grünebaum and underestimating Auntie Schlotterbeck.
Against his will, however, the sardonic Moses rendered him valuable
service in this respect. The latter analyzed Hans' feelings to him and
explained that he was tormented by envy. Once having recognized this
condition the value of his mother's home became clear to him again
and he was irresistibly drawn back into its simple, heart-refreshing
atmosphere.]