It was a melancholy way through the autumn weather. Throughout the
journey the wind was the poor wanderer's companion, the cold, dreary,
whining, groaning October wind. Mockingly it tore from the woods a good
part of the adornment with which it had often dallied so winningly in
spring and summer. It whipped up dense clouds of dust on the road and
rushed across the stubble fields with a shrieking hiss which could not
have been pleasant to any living creature except the crows. Only the
thrashing of the flails in the neighboring and distant villages could
be taken as a comforting sign that everything was not yet lost to the
earth and that the triumph that the wind was celebrating on the empty
fields was only a deceptive one.
But this comfort was lost on the lonely wanderer in the clouds of dust
on the country road; he could pay little attention to it and, deeply
depressed and forlorn, he dragged one foot after the other. He had
traveled this way so often already that no object that sprang into view
on either side of the road was unfamiliar to him. Trees and boulders,
houses and huts, sign-posts, church steeples, old boundary stones which
no longer marked anything but the transitoriness of even the widest
possessions--all had already made various impressions on him in his
various moods. He remembered how he had sat thinking on this spot, had
slept through an afternoon under the bushes on that one. He thought
most of those days when he had passed this way for the first time with
his great hunger for knowledge, in the companionship of that comrade of
his youth who was now gone. Now he was going back along this way for
the last time;--he had learnt much, endured many things and enjoyed
many pleasures! What was now the state of his soul?
He was depressed, he was sad and would have been so even without Uncle
Grünebaum's letter of ill tidings. With all his strength he had striven
to learn all that could be learnt of the high branch of knowledge to
which he had devoted himself, and he was obliged to confess that this
was little enough. He felt deeply the inadequacy of what the men on the
lecture platform had taught him, but he felt something else besides and
that was what Professor Vogelsang and most of the other members of the
highly laudable, honorable faculty did not want to recognize because
they could not teach it.
He was on his way to see one die whom he loved more than any other
human being; he stepped out toward darkness and it was darkness that he
left behind him. At one time he had preached to the trees and the birds
because the world would hear nothing of his feelings, and he had never
complained of that. Now, his hunger for knowledge seemed to be dead,
but his feelings were still alive, rose insistently and crowded about
his heart; they grew to be the bitterest pain that a man can endure. At
that moment nothing was distinct in the surging tumult; sorrow about
his mother, disappointment, worry and fear were mingled; and, curiously
enough, mixed with all these there sounded sharply and cuttingly long
forgotten words which Moses Freudenstein had once uttered. During this
journey Hans Jakob Unwirrsch was in a similar mood to that of another
John James who, long years before, had gone from Annecy to Vevay and
had written of that road:
"_Combien de fois, m'arrêtant pour pleurer à mon aise, assis sur une
grosse pierre, je me suis amusé à voir tomber mes larmes dans l'eau!_"
It blew incessantly! All day long the wind drove dark clouds across
the gray sky, yet not a drop of rain fell. It burrowed into the hedges
about the neglected, untidy gardens where the withered sunflowers and
hollyhocks hung their heads plaintively. It rattled the windows of the
village inn where Hans ate his dinner, blustered about the house and
waited grimly for the wanderer who had escaped it for a short moment.
It played its game about the coach that stopped at the toll-gate and
flapped the cape of the driver's coat so violently round his ears that
he could scarcely get out the toll. Hans threw an indifferent glance
at this carriage through the window; but the next moment he regarded
it more keenly. The leather flap at the side of the carriage had been
drawn back, a young girl looked out and peered down the dreary country
road. The wind raised the black veil on her black mourning hat and had
no more pity on the pale, sad, girlish face beneath it than on anything
else that came in its way. But for that reason the little face only
made the greater impression on Hans. Trouble greeted trouble, and the
sorrow that went on foot along the country road bowed to the sorrow in
the carriage that rolled through the clouds of dust. That childish,
careworn face just fitted into the mood that possessed Hans; he would
have liked to know more of its owner's life and fate.
But the girl's head drew back and in its place there appeared a gray
moustache and an old military cap. A glass of brandy was handed into
the carriage, full, and very quickly appeared again, empty; the driver
too had found it possible, in spite of his violent struggle with his
cape, to refresh himself with a drink that did not come directly from
the spring. Get up! Forward! The horses started and, with a cloud of
dust the old vehicle rattled off, the wind rushing after it like a
bloodhound on the trail and it was more than remarkable that when Hans
came out of the Golden Stag Inn it received him too with triumphant
animosity and blew him after the carriage.
The people in the Golden Stag had not been able to say who the military
old gentleman and the young lady in mourning were; they only knew the
driver, the two lean nags and the tumble-down old vehicle, and said
that this quartet was often hired by travelers as it was frequently
the only means of transport in the neighborhood.
In addition to all his other thoughts Hans now carried with him on his
way through the dark afternoon the image of the lovely little face he
had seen. Ever anew it presented itself to his mental vision; he could
not help it. Thus he went on and did not stop till the dusk had grown
denser and he had reached the little town in which he was to spend the
night.
To be sure, it had been dusk all day and the evening could make little
change in the illumination of the world. But now night fell and made
common cause with the wind and if the devil had joined the alliance he
could not have made matters much worse.
It was not the wind's fault that the crooked old houses of the little
country town which Hans now entered were still standing the next
morning. The lights in the rooms, behind the windows, seemed to flicker
and the few people who were still in the streets fought their way
laboriously against the storm, bending forward or leaning back. Front
doors slammed with thundering crashes, window shutters flew open with a
rattle and the only glazier in the place listened with singular joy to
every shrill clinking and clatter in the distance.
If, however, the wind was obliged to leave the little town as a whole
still standing it could do even less to the keeper of the Post-horn
Inn. To have blown him from his feet and thrown him to the earth
would indeed have been a feat which Aeolus might well have set his
subjects and rewarded with a prize. On his short, well-rounded legs
the innkeeper stood firm and unmoved in front of his doorway under
his creaking sign and gave orders regarding a carriage which was just
being drawn under shelter by two servants. The lean theologian, Hans
Unwirrsch, landed, in the most literal sense of the word, on the
colossal mountain of flesh, the keeper of the Post-horn Inn; half
smothered and half blinded Hans was blown into the doorway and hurled
violently against the innkeeper's stomach, but even this collision did
not disturb the balance of his huge bulk.
The keeper of the Post-horn Inn was fortunately a man who knew how
to appreciate the compelling power of circumstances; the attack did
not make him as rude as might have been expected. He did not invite
the guest thus hurled against him to go to the devil, he even wheeled
halfway round to afford him an entrance into his house and followed him
merely snorting a few mild remarks.
"A confounded way to steer! Always go slow over the bridge! Don't turn
too sharp a corner! Thunder, right on my full stomach!"
But when, in the dimly lit room, he recognized the stranger that
the ill wind had blown into his house, the last shade of bad humor
disappeared from his round face and with perfect cheerfulness he held
out his broad paw to shake hands.
"Ah, it's you, my young student friend! Back once more in the holidays?
I'm glad of that! As they say, it's an ill wind that blows nobody good."
Hans apologized as well as he could for his tumultuous greeting at
the door; but now the innkeeper only looked at him smilingly and
pityingly and blew across his hand as if he would say: "A feather! A
feather! Nothing but a feather!"--But what he did say was: "That's all
right, Mr. Unwirrsch, I'm well able to stand my ground. Take off your
knapsack;--I suppose you've carried it on your back all day long as
usual? It's a shame!"
There was the landlady, just as corpulent as the master of the house!
There was "my hostess' daughter fair" but not "in a coffin black and
bare" this time, thank God! nay, very much alive and also of pleasant
amplitude. And they greeted poor, sad Hans whose good heart and tiny
purse they had learnt to know in former vacations and treated with the
respect due them. They questioned him about everything before he could
get his breath and knew the sorrowful circumstance that now called him
home before he had laid down his knapsack and heavy stick. And as they
considered a good meal and a good draught the best panacea for all ills
he, the landlord, went down into the cellar and the landlady with her
daughter went into the kitchen and Hans was now able to take a first
glance at the other guests.
There were only two there. There was a table laid for supper in the
corner by the stove and they were sitting at it; an old gentleman
with a moustache, in a long military coat buttoned up under his chin,
and a pale, delicate looking young girl in mourning. The girl was
looking down and continued to do so but the old gentleman stared at
the theologian so steadily and openly that the latter felt quite
uncomfortable and was very glad when the fat landlord reappeared in the
room and interposed his solid form between the keen-eyed, moustached
countenance and the table at which Hans had seated himself.
The landlord had a robust voice and did not put his questions as softly
as Hans would have wished; the landlord was somewhat deaf and required
Hans to answer as loudly as possible. And when "my hostess" came with
dishes and plates and "my hostess's daughter fair" with knives and
forks, they too had questions to ask. The old soldier did not need to
play eavesdropper to hear everything worth knowing about the black-coat.
If a man who has had much trouble to bear has not heard any friendly,
sympathetic voices about him for a long time, he becomes communicative
when finally such voices do reach his ears and his heart with questions
and expressions of pity, however reticent he may be as a rule. And, as
we know, Hans Unwirrsch was not reticent; he did not keep his joys and
sorrows out of sight and, as he had nothing to conceal, he unreservedly
gave the good-natured family a full account of how he and the world had
got along with one another.
The military looking old gentleman soon knew everything that might be
of interest in such a hungry-looking, black-gowned, young theological
student. He knew his name, he knew that he came from the famous town
of Neustadt, he had heard that a certain Uncle Grünebaum was still in
good health and that a no less certain Auntie Schlotterbeck still saw
the dead wandering about in the streets. That the theologian had an old
mother in Neustadt and that this mother was ill with a serious, painful
disease and would perhaps have to die--all this the old gentleman with
the gray moustache heard, and the young girl heard it too, moreover
with sympathy, as it seemed, for she had raised her head and turned it
towards where the young man was sitting. Her face was kind, but not
beautiful; it was her eyes that were beautiful, with which, however,
she could not see the theologian but only the broad back of the
landlord of the Post-horn Inn. The landlord blocked her view as well as
that of the young man whom he was questioning so eagerly.
How angry the wind was outside, and how unmistakably it showed its
fury! It blustered round the house as if mad and shook every window at
which its ally, the night, the dreary autumn night, the enemy of man,
the enemy of light, looked in. Oh, how angry the wind and the night
were with the travelers who were now so safe from them; how angry with
the fat landlord of the Post-horn Inn and with the landlady and the
landlady's rosy daughter! No pursuer whose victims had escaped into
some inviolable sanctuary could be more angry.
But who was it who at this moment emphatically snapped out the words:
"That impudent Jew!"....
Was it the wind or was it the night?
No, it was the elderly military gentleman with the moustache and if
there had been any doubt that by this kindly designation he meant
our friend Moses Freudenstein, whose name Hans Unwirrsch had just
mentioned, he dissipated such doubt immediately by adding:
"A conceited, impudent Jewish brat, if it's the rogue to whom, lately,
in Paris, I had to give a piece of my mind! Wasn't it so, Fränzchen?
Moses Freudenstein, yes, that was the name. Won't you move nearer, sir;
come over here to this table; it's an evening for people to gather
close together and I shall be glad to make your nearer acquaintance and
to hear something further about this Moses."
The landlord and his family, wondering much at this sudden
interruption, had turned to the speaker, and Hans, much excited by this
unsuspected attack on his friend, had risen.
With no trace of timidity he began Moses Freudenstein's defense from
where he sat; but the old gentleman waved his hand soothingly.
"Come, come; always keep step! Right, left! Right--now the wind has
the floor again. Just listen to its blustering outside! This is the
sort of weather that takes away even a pastor's appetite for a dispute.
Come over here, candidate, and have a glass of punch; and don't take it
amiss if I've done it again and said something unsuitable;--I suppose I
have, for here's my niece pulling my coat-tail."
Perhaps at that moment it would have been quite agreeable to the young
lady if the landlord had still stood between her and the theological
student; but the view was now perfectly open and nothing prevented our
Hans from thanking with a glance the blushing child who had pulled the
coat of the owner of the gray military moustache.
"Forward, candidate, forward! Carry arms,--march--halt! Move up,
Franziska;--you're surely not afraid of a young black-coat. Landlord,
what would you think of calling out a second levy of this pleasant and
wholesome beverage?"
The landlord thought that the beverage was just suited to the weather
and the hour and lost no time in filling the order. Before Hans
Unwirrsch really knew how it had happened he was sitting beside the
old soldier, opposite the pale young lady and in front of a steaming
glass.
"That's right, young man," said the owner of the moustache. "I knew
that you wouldn't fall out with a pensioned old soldier on account of
just a word or two. Your health, sir; and now as I have by this time
learnt your name, circumstances and so on, you shall not feel your way
in the dark as regards us, either. I am a retired lieutenant, Rudolf
Götz, and this child is my niece, Franziska Götz, whose father has
lately died in Paris and whom I have fetched from there, to turn her
over to my third brother who is a juristic big-wig--poor little thing!"
The lieutenant growled the last words very softly and immediately
added, very loudly.
"And now then, as we each know who the other is, I hope that the
evening will pass without any row in the quarters. Here's to you, sir,
you've made a good march today and a good drink ought to follow it."
Hans drank to the lieutenant in return and soon found that the voice
and the moustache bore no relation to the eyes, the good-natured nose
and the joyous mouth. He found that there was no reason to fear that
theology had here fallen into the power and under the tyranny of a
bragging swashbuckler. And, indeed, he thought, that it would require
great inward perversity to be outwardly rough in the presence of the
girl Franziska.
It was a pleasant picture to see the old soldier sitting between the
two sorrowful young people. He was certainly very much inclined to be
quite jolly; but as that was hardly the thing he did his best to play
the part of the comforter.
"So it goes in the world," he said over the edge of his glass, "people
drive or trot past each other on the road and never think of each other
and then, a few hours later, all at once they are sitting comfortably
together and stretching out their legs under the same table. And so
it goes with us too; you're just standing in a solid square and have
your men on either side, your best friends and can depend on them.
You watch calmly how the two twelve-pounders over there are planted
and the game begins. Phwt, phwt--the balls make bad paths through the
battalion; but they don't touch you, nor the men beside you either.
Over there, they're thinking, now their time has come--there is the
cavalry--trot--gallop--you see them coming on with a stamping and
roaring, like a thunder storm,--Fire! There is a cracking about your
ears and your mind is so confused that you couldn't even say "Bless
you" if the devil should sneeze. But you stand fast, however black
it may grow before your eyes--now the real jamming sets in, and you
stumble over all sorts of things that squirm or lie still. There's
squealing and howling and groaning between your feet; but it's all one,
you stand as fast as possible, even if you can't help it. The dogs must
be driven back, and they are. Through the smoke you see nothing but
the tails of the horses and everyone trying to get back where he came
from and the wind blows the smoke after them--but, the devil, where
are the men beside you? There are strange faces all round and it's a
strange hand that holds out the bottle to you; there, comrade, drink
after that piece of work! The battalion goes forward three paces to
get the dead and wounded out of the ranks. All around the fellows are
steaming with sweat and here and there one of them has blood trickling
out of his nose or somewhere. The ground is slippery and ploughed-up
enough and there's a most infernal smell in the air; but your good
friends are gone and you mustn't even turn round to look after them for
the scoundrels over there at the edge of the woods aren't done yet by
a long shot; they'll come again often enough before the sun sets so as
to earn their supper and stamp the name of Waterloo on the history of
the world. And now here is my niece Franziska; she too has lost the man
next her from her sight, and here is the pastor with a face like the
black tom-cat that fell into the pot of vinegar, and here am I--also a
poor orphan. I can tell you, young people, when a man has had it rain
a few times into his camp kettle, he learns to put on the lid and when
a man has lost more than one good comrade from his side he learns to
say goodby. The softest hearts have learnt just to swallow dry three
times in their misery and still they have remained the best and most
faithful souls. Hold up your head, Fränzel; do it for your old uncle's
sake; hold up your head, Hans Unwirrsch! If such young people as you
rub their noses in the dust what are we old fellows to do?"
Franziska pressed the hard, hairy hand that the soldier held out to her
tenderly to her breast; she looked at him and although tears glittered
in her eyes she smiled and said:
"Oh, my dear, good Uncle; I will do everything that you want me to. I
know that it is wrong of me to show such sadness in return for your
love; you must be indulgent with me,--you have spoilt me very much with
your love."
The old man took up the weak little hand which he held in his broad paw
and looked at it attentively.
"Poor child, poor child," he murmured. "As forsaken and blown about as
a little bird that has fallen out of the nest:--and Theodor and his
wife--and Kleophea--Oh, it's a shame! Poor little bird, poor little
bird,--and I, old vagabond that I am, haven't even the most wretched
corner to give it shelter."
He shook his head for a long time, growling and sighing; then he
brought his hand down on the table:
"Let's be merry, Pastor. So you know that Moses Freudenstein who now,
with eight hundred thousand other loafers, infests the Paris streets?
That's a fine acquaintance and really suits you about as well as a
howitzer suits dried peas."
"I should be very sorry if Moses, if it is really he, should really
deserve your displeasure so much, Mr. Götz," answered Hans. "We grew up
together, we were friends at school and at the university; and moreover
he can scarcely have been six months in Paris. I hope it is a mistake;
I hope so with all my heart!"
The lieutenant now asked Hans to describe the personality of poor,
good Moses exactly, and at every detail that Hans mentioned he was
unfortunately obliged to nod and look interrogatively at his niece.
"It's he. It's as sure as a gun. That's the rascal, isn't it,
Fränzchen? I'll tell you the tale in a few words, to put an end to the
matter. As my brother's death took place very suddenly my niece was
left all alone for some time in that nest of Satan and I know what that
means because I was there on a visit in 1814 and '15, but there were a
good many others with me. Poor child, poor child! I know what it means
to be left all alone in that turmoil--She's pulling my coat again,
Pastor! Now please leave me alone, Fränzel; let me tell him."
"I'd rather you didn't, Uncle," whispered the young girl, "and you
looked at the matter in a worse light than it was; that gentleman----"
"Was a scoundrel who had to be ground into a pulp;--no, don't pull me,
Fränzel."
Franziska threw a beseeching glance at Hans Unwirrsch and he had seldom
felt so uncomfortable on any seat, besides he did not now learn after
all in what relation his friend had stood to the young lady and the
old soldier. Although the uncertainty troubled him much and the doubt
of his friend that had been aroused in him pierced his heart, he would
not have increased the pale girl's grief by eager, prying questions,
for anything in the world. Only one thing was clear to him: chance must
have led the winsome Moses into the house in which Franziska had lived
after her father's death, helpless, lonely and unprotected, and that
his behavior could not have been of the most chivalrous kind. On one of
the boulevards a violent scene had then taken place between Mr. Götz
and Mr. Freudenstein, and the former had certainly brought home with
him to the German fatherland a deeply rooted antipathy to poor Moses.
Before the windows of the "Post-horn" another horn now sounded
discordantly. The night-watchman called the tenth hour and the little
party separated. The lieutenant took leave of the theologian in cordial
fashion and admonished him once more to keep his head above water and
to break his neck, if it must be, only in the best of health. Franziska
Götz too, at his command, had to shake hands with the young man in
parting and did so quite naturally and without embarrassment. The
lieutenant and his niece had to leave early the next morning to reach
the railway which now ran to the capital in the north. Hans Unwirrsch
was able to sleep longer; no line of railway went as yet to Neustadt
and, indeed, the town felt no need at all of being made accessible to
the rest of the world in such a way. Hence if Hans resolved to bid the
two travelers Godspeed once more at the carriage door in the morning,
it certainly showed his good intentions and if he overslept, that was
the fault of fate, which prevented his good intentions from being
carried out.
He really did oversleep after having tossed about sleeplessly half the
night. His long tramp and the wind, which rushed over the roof and
whistled round the corners, Uncle Grünebaum's letter and Lieutenant
Rudolf Götz's strong punch, Mr. Moses Freudenstein in Paris and pale,
sad Franziska would not let him sleep. He got up and lit the light,
only to blow it out again; he could not get his ideas into any sort of
order and if usually his imagination came to his aid when he was in
a depressed mood to comfort him with all kinds of bright and lovely
pictures of the past or to hold up before him the magic mirror of the
future with smiles and teasing beckonings, it now only drove ghostly
shadows round his head and concealed in the most threatening manner
both what lay near and what lay distant.
In all his life Hans Unwirrsch had never felt so lacking in courage as
in that night;--until then he had been too happy. Now, for the first
time dark, merciless hands reached into his life from all directions;
the narrow, secure circle which a kind fate had drawn about his youth
had now been broken through; he was being dragged out into the great
struggle of the world, of which the young girl who was spending the
night at the Post-horn under the same roof as he, knew so much more
than he did.
_Vae victis!_