The affair in Raudnitz had a sad sequel, and gave me a great deal to do.
The prisoner hanged himself in jail. The coroner's inquest and the
attendant formalities occupied most of my time. I was compelled to drive
repeatedly to Raudnitz, and I became acquainted with the unfortunate
family of the accused who had taken justice into his own hands. The
wife, well-mannered, had a rather hard expression; the two daughters
were educated and well-bred; the aged mother of the man was pathetic in
her old Jewish humility and pious resignation. A fearful fate had
overtaken the unsuspecting folk who a few days before had been living
in quiet happiness. I asked the woman what could possibly have driven
her husband to his desperate deed. In the most unfavorable circumstances
he would have been punished for homicide through carelessness, and the
sentence would certainly have been light, since he could have proved
that the fatal fall of the victim was primarily due to his drunkenness.
"But the shame, Herr Doktor, the shame. For months he would have been in
jail undergoing examination and cross-questioning; then he'd surely have
remained in prison a couple of years--for they would never have
acquitted him entirely. He didn't want to live through all that--the
shame, Herr Kreisphysikus, shame before his children, and the sorrow for
his mother. It would have lasted years, long, long years; and so he
ended it at one stroke. He knew me, and he felt sure I wouldn't lose my
head, and would provide for the children. He was certain of it, and
knew he would be a greater burden to his family if he was buried alive
in prison than if lying dead beneath the earth. It is terribly painful,
but there is an end of it; the other would have been an eternal shame.
That is the way he reasoned; he killed himself for the sake of his
children."
I shuddered, when I heard the affair discussed so rationally and
cold-bloodedly. Was it heartlessness or keensightedness that made them
so hard and unloving? Hadn't the woman loved and respected her husband?
Yet did she not judge his deed as the outcome of reasoned consideration,
his voluntary death as a sacrifice to his family, as a martyr's death?
A question rose to my lips.
"But tell me, my dear Mrs. Schlochauer, your husband must surely have
thought that he would hurt you deeply, you with whom he lived happily
and whom he certainly loved and respected. And he must have felt that
he would give his old mother infinite pain."
An odd smile drew the corners of her mouth, and some moments passed
before she roused herself from a sort of trance, and said: "His mother
is very old, Herr Doktor, eighty-two years old; she hasn't much more to
expect from life, I am sure he thought of that. And as for his love for
me "--she hesitated--"he was always considerate of me, and respectful,
but love? In a decent Jewish family the love of man and wife is their
love for their children."
What had moved the soul of this woman to such conclusions on married
life?
Yesterday I learned by chance that she was the daughter of a teacher in
Beuthen, and had herself been trained as a teacher. The community had
granted her a scholarship, to complete her course for the teacher's
examinations at the Seminary in Breslau. There she became acquainted
with a young painter, a Christian, and a love affair, as pure as it was
ardent, developed between them. When her parents heard of the affair,
they made her come home immediately. Her studies were interrupted, and
she took up life again in her parents' house, the fountain of her
emotions sealed, the bitter sorrow of an unhappy love swelling her
heart. What was her inner development after this first, hard
disillusionment, this spiritual conflict? Who can tell?
When, some years later, the first flush of youth past, her father
expressed to her his wish that she marry Schlochauer in Raudnitz, the
well-to-do proprietor of a distillery, in order to lighten his own
troubles in bringing up his numerous offspring, she obeyed without a
murmur. Her husband respected her, and offered no objection to her
assisting her family and so enabling her brothers to study. He loved
her, too--for she presented him with four children. Two died young--and
as for the two remaining daughters, she would provide for them
carefully. Her husband would not be deceived in her; the sacrifice of
his life was not made in vain.
"When everything is settled, Herr Kreisphysikus, I am going to sell the
business and the house, and move to Berlin. We have some means, Herr
Doktor; my husband was a good manager. In Berlin we are not well known;
and grass grows over everything that happens. No matter if a person here
and there knows something about it; it is quickly forgotten. People have
no time there to gossip about private affairs. I have three brothers in
Berlin, all in respected positions. So, in the large city, I shall live
free from care with my daughters; they are still young and will get over
the pain and horror of the present."
"And you, Frau Schlochauer?" I hastily asked.
"I? I shall do my duty."
The words sounded so natural, yet it made a painful impression on me to
see how collected she was, how quietly and circumspectly she looked into
the future from out of the confusion and distress of the moment. Perhaps
she divined the course of my thoughts, for suddenly she continued:
"Don't wonder that I speak of this matter so calmly. You become
accustomed to such things if for twenty years you live with a business
man in this neighborhood, among such rude, rough folk. You learn to be
on the lookout, to be careful and practical. And you forget that once
you regarded the world with different eyes."
She uttered the last words softly, with downward glance. When I heard
the history of her youth yesterday, I saw her in my mind's eye again,
and a feeling of boundless pity for this woman swept over me--not for
what she was suffering now--now that she was steeled and
experienced--but for her youth, the youth she had lost because
practical considerations and hindrances determined the course of her
life.
But now I must tell about a remarkable acquaintance I made yesterday,
the man who told me what I know of Frau Schlochauer's history. He
introduces some humor into the affair.
"Herr Jonas Goldstuecker."
The visiting card with this name printed in large Roman characters lies
before me and seems to throw a crafty and comical smile at me. In fact
my new acquaintance is very amusing. The card was brought in to me at
the end of my afternoon office hours. Herr Jonas Goldstuecker! I thought
it was a patient, and had him admitted even though the time for
receiving patients was past. A few moments later an elderly man sat
before me, well-preserved and decently dressed. He was perfectly open in
letting his curious gaze rove through my room, and I felt that in a
minute period of time he had a thorough survey. His inventory took in
all the objects in the room, myself included. His sly eyes seemed ever
to be investigating and inspecting, and although he frequently pressed
them shut, or glanced into space over his nickel-plated _pince-nez_, one
felt correctly catalogued and pigeonholed. Herr Jonas Goldstuecker began
to interest me. Without waiting for me to ask his business, he said:
"I knew, Herr Kreisphysikus, that you always stay at home a little while
after your office hours, and that's the reason I chose this time for
coming to you; I thought we would not be disturbed now."
So he was acquainted with my habits, with something about my private
life; he wanted to speak to me without outside interruption--did this
man know of some secret? Did a matter calling for discretion lead him to
me? But he gave me no time for surmise, and added:
"You certainly don't run after practice among well-to-do patients; no
one can reproach you with that--you live like a hermit; and outside of
Simon Eichelkatz no one has had the honor of seeing you at his home."
My face must have looked very stupid, or it must have expressed great
amazement at his intimate tone and his familiarity with my affairs;
because he laughed and said:
"Yes, Herr Kreisphysikus, in a little town you get to know people, and
all about them."
"But I don't know _you_," I interrupted, my patience at last exhausted.
"I am Jonas Goldstuecker."
"So your card tells me. But I should like to permit myself the question,
to what I owe the honor of your visit."
"O, you'll soon find out, Herr Kreisphysikus. I am not sick, as you see.
Quite another reason brings me to you. But if I should need medical
advice, I shall not fail to come to you, although Sanitaetsrat Ehrlich
has been treating me for six years--since the time his daughter Annie
married Herr Rechtsanwalt Bobrecker of Leobschuetz. An excellent match.
Any day Bobrecker might have gotten sixty thousand marks, and Loewenberg,
the wool manufacturer in Oppeln, would have given him as much as
seventy-five thousand, but he wanted to marry a girl from an educated
family, and no other. Well, the daughter of Sanitaetsrat Ehrlich is no
vain delusion."
My breath was completely taken away by this information regarding
private matters.
Next came the abrupt question:
"In general, Herr Kreisphysikus, are you in favor of wet or dry
treatment in rheumatism?"
A patient after all! I breathed more freely. Herr Jonas Goldstuecker had
given me a creepy sensation.
"I don't understand what you mean by that."
"I mean, are you in favor of massage and electricity or in favor of
baths?"
The impudent assurance of the question utterly astounded me, and I
wanted to give him a brusque reply, when he continued:
"Sanitaetsrat Ehrlich is an excellent physician; but he's a bit
antiquated already, Herr Kreisphysikus. The young doctors of to-day make
a much more lymphatic impression."
Doubtless, he meant "emphatic," because a few moments later another
pretentious word was incorrectly applied.
"But Sanitaetsrat Ehrlich after all has the largest practice in the
congregation; and people would look on it as bigamy if anyone were to
say anything against him."
I was only slightly acquainted with my colleague, and I did not know
that doubt of his powers would be regarded as blasphemy--probably what
Jonas Goldstuecker meant to say. The humor of the situation at last began
to dawn upon me, and I awaited the further utterances of my remarkable
guest in amused curiosity.
"And his house, Herr Kreisphysikus, his house! Really, very fine. The
Frau Sanitaetstraetin knows how to do the honors and to keep her
distance."
What he meant by this was not exactly clear to me; but I learned that
the youngest daughter of my colleague Ehrlich was a ravishing maiden, as
Herr Jonas Goldstuecker assured me.
"Very highly educated, speaks every language, plays the piano as well as
Leubuscher (I didn't know of the performer), and only Chopin,
Rubinstein, Offenbach, Brahm."
"Brahms, Herr Goldstuecker, Brahms."
"Why, yes, I said Brahm, Herr Kreisphysikus. And what she doesn't know,
besides! And quite a housekeeper, too; she learned cooking. No, not a
soul can find a thing to say against Miss Edith--Edith, a pretty name,
Herr Kreisphysikus, Edith."
He was silent for a moment. I was on the point of telling him that all
this had very little interest for me, and that he should come to the
real object of his visit; but he continued to impress me as a man of the
better classes, with fairly decent manners, calling for a certain amount
of consideration. So I maintained my attitude of expectancy, and
listened to his digressions and discourses on this theme and that. In
the course of his remarks he exclaimed:
"It's really a shame that you don't visit at Sanitaetsrat Ehrlich's,
though I can imagine you haven't very much time. And now you must be
having a good deal of annoyance with that affair in Raudnitz. A terrible
misfortune, terrible. That Herr Schlochauer must have had a fearful
temper; because it isn't so easy to throw a man out of your place and
kill him outright. It must be very trying to his wife; she is an
educated woman, daughter of the teacher Weiss, in Beuthen. She never
thought she would marry a thoroughly uneducated saloon-keeper. But he
got along very well, and you never heard any talk about her not living
happily with him. She always had what she needed, and much more. She
could help her own family and give her two daughters a good
education--very different from what would have happened if she'd gotten
her painter. What a sad picture they'd have made, she and her
picture-maker."
He laughed complacently at his pun, and I meditated over the ideal
Jewish marriage. Then I was made acquainted with the story of Frau
Rosalie Schlochauer's youthful love.
"But that he should have gone and taken his life! It's really awful to
bring about a misfortune so deliberately. However, a sister-in-law of
Frau Schlochauer, a cousin of my wife, married to the book-dealer
Grosser, told me that the widow is remarkably calm. Frau Grosser herself
is half dead from the excitement, and she can't possibly comprehend how
Frau Schlochauer can be so collected. The idea of hanging himself in
prison! Absurd! If he had waited, for all we know he might have been set
free. At any rate he would not have gotten more than three or four
years. In no circumstances would he have been put into the penitentiary.
Herr Rechtsanwalt Cassirer told me yesterday that the jury would
certainly have agreed on _dolus eventualiter_."
Of course, what Herr Jonas Goldstuecker wanted to say was _dolus
eventualis_. But a little thing like that didn't matter to him, and I
continued to wonder how he came to know everybody and associate with the
best families. He was evidently on a most intimate footing with the
heads of the community.
"Frau Schlochauer," he said, after a while, "will doubtless move away
from Raudnitz. Life for her there in these circumstances is impossible.
And what should she do with two daughters, who are almost grown up and
will soon be marriageable? She will certainly go to Berlin. Her brothers
live there; one of them is a lawyer, another is a physician, and the
third owns a large shirtwaist factory. There she will have someone to
cling to."
I had a mental picture of Frau Schlochauer, quiet in her grief, earnest,
thoughtful, as she unfolded to me her plans for the future. And this man
knew it all. He had guessed it and now expressed his opinion on events
in the life of a stranger.
"In Berlin people don't bother about such stories. There Frau
Schlochauer is the sister of the lawyer Weiss and the doctor Weiss; she
is the rich Frau Schlochauer with two pretty, well-bred daughters.
That's enough. The girls will make very good matches. They say the
property amounts to a great deal, much more than you'd think by looking
at Herr Schlochauer. There he was working all day and thinking of
nothing but how to serve his customers. He left culture and education
to his wife--and now the money, in addition. The sale of the big house
and the distillery may bring in as much as four hundred thousand marks.
Yesterday Rothmann, the banker, told me Schlochauer had been well off,
almost rich. Some of his money he placed with Rothmann, the rest with
the Breslau Diskonto Bank; and Rothmann knows the amount of his
deposits. If Frau Schlochauer, when the time comes, will give each
daughter one hundred thousands marks--for the present she won't use more
than the interest on her money--she will be able to do very well with
them. Of course, she won't get the sort of person that looks out for a
so-called fine family. People like that ask after every possible thing,
and are sure to find out about the detention in prison and the suicide.
There are some who won't suffer the tiniest speck on the family
name--but there are enough young people, too, who haul in without
questioning and think, 'Let by-gones be by-gones.' Sometimes even
physicians and lawyers aren't so particular about 'antecedents.'"
I looked at my watch. The act should have been an indication to him that
I was getting impatient, and was displeased with the familiarity of his
talk; but he seemed not to comprehend the delicate hint. For he suddenly
broke out with:
"Herr Rabbiner Gruenbaum in Loslau was a brother of your mother, wasn't
he, Herr Kreisphysikus? I knew him very well. I'm from Loslau, too. A
fine man, and very good and friendly. He was very much loved in the
Khille, and my blessed mother always used to say: 'Fine as silk, fine as
silk.' I knew your father, too, Herr Kreisphysikus; once when he was in
Loslau, at the funeral of your uncle, I saw him, and I heard the sermon
he delivered. Great, really great! So touching! The whole congregation
shed tears. Your father must have been a splendid pulpit orator. A pity
he was in such a small congregation. He belonged in Breslau or Berlin.
But, God bless me, good can be accomplished in the smallest of places;
and he certainly did do good. Herr Doktor Feilchenstein was in
Johannisbad with me this summer, and he couldn't get through telling me
about your parents, Herr Kreisphysikus, and what a pious, good old lady
your mother is. No wonder, either, if she's a sister of Herr Rabbiner
Gruenbaum, of Loslau. And Doktor Feilchenstein told me of you, too. You
know, I mean your cousin from Frankfort-on-the-Oder. When he heard that
I was from Raudnitz, he asked after you, and sent his regards. He
refused to believe that I hadn't met you, when you'd been here since
April. But, dear me, in summer everybody, of course, is away, and it's
no time for visiting. But now, Herr Kreisphysikus, it's October already,
and you haven't made any visits yet."
What gave the man the right to remonstrate with me on this subject? To
be sure, he seemed well acquainted with my family affairs--my cousin
sent messages by him. I pondered a while; the name "Jonas Goldstuecker"
was not on my visiting list. Curious! All I said was: "You must leave me
to judge of that."
"But I beg of you, Herr Kreisphysikus, you misunderstand me. I assure
you I did not mean to instruct you in matters of social form. How could
you think such a thing? All I meant was, how should families here get to
know and appreciate you, if you keep yourself at such a distance? And
your cousin, Doctor Feilchenstein, told me what an excellent person you
are, how earnest and thorough, and how you had opened up a career for
yourself when you were comparatively young. Not out of the thirties and
a Physikus already--and how much pleasure you are giving your old
mother."
Since I last saw my cousin he must have developed into a garrulous old
woman. What had possessed him to tell an utter stranger so much of my
life, to praise me, and speak of my relations with my quiet, reserved
little mother? I couldn't believe my ears, and I was about to give
expression to my amazement when he continued:
"And how happy your dear mother would be if you would soon present her
with a nice daughter-in-law! If the girl is fine and educated, your
mother might even live with you, and end her days under your roof. Many
young girls, to be sure, are not in favor of such an arrangement; but
that depends, and Edith Ehrlich is such a clever person...."
I jumped from my seat, and came near laughing out loud. At last the
mystery was solved. Herr Jonas Goldstuecker, who honored me with so
curious and intimate a visit, was a _Shadchen_, the marriage broker of
the congregation!
It was highly entertaining. But apparently he did not care to notice
that I took the matter as a joke, for he remained quietly seated and
continued:
"And Herr Sanitaetsrat prefers a physician, who might take up his
practice later...."
"Marry into the profession, so to speak," I interjected.
"Yes, Herr Kreisphysikus. But that's only by the way. In addition he
will give his daughter fifty thousand marks, just as much as
Rechtsanwalt Bobrecker got, and if you--you might pay a visit there
anyway--I am sure if you once get to know Miss Edith, you will see that
the description I gave of her is true from head to foot. She has a
beautiful head of chestnut brown hair...."
The association of ideas was delicious.
"She has a fine figure, medium size, and when I think how glad your old
mother would be...."
I do not know whether I politely showed Herr Jonas Goldstuecker the door,
or whether he went voluntarily. At all events he was gone. But this
very day I mean to write a letter to my cousin, Doktor Feilchenstein,
and give him a piece of my mind.