"The members of the Casino had made it an variable rule never to
question the judge's wife respecting her experiences in her work; and
she herself never mentioned it unless she had need of another's help.
It could easily be seen that she must have met with something difficult
to-day; but her face brightened when the school-master began:
"The gentlemen will allow me to explain to Madame Pfann the
starting-point and progress of our conversation. The physician had told
us that Walderjoergli, since the day of the celebration, had been
approaching his release. This suggested the assertion that the
advantage of culture to the common people is questionable in every
respect; that roughness keeps the people even physically stronger than
culture. The judge replied that a child must become a youth, and then a
man, and it is an idle question whether it would not have been happier
if it had remained a child. The physician was just about to speak of
the effect of culture in relation to diseases."
"Not exactly that," said the physician; "but I was going to say that
the greater difficulty of regulating the peasant's diet is attributable
to his degree of culture; and, again, the acute character of a disease
that is already developed may often be broken up by timely remedies."
"I claim this also for intellectual and social discipline," cried the
school-teacher. "The moderating power of culture will turn aside the
violence of the passions, and ward off their tragical end. Obstinacy
and unbending willfulness are not real strength."
"A quarrel about the people's beard," said a clergyman to a colleague,
smiling, and handing him an open snuff-box. The school-master had heard
a whisper, but had not understood what was said; so he continued, with
a sharp sidelong glance at the disturbers:
"As sure as the means of healing from the apothecary help struggling
nature in sickness, or put aside a hindrance to nature's work, just as
certainly will the means of culture, which for centuries have been
gathered together by science, mitigate and heal moral infirmity, and
the outbreak of passion that leads to crime--yes, even crimes that are
already committed."
Turning to the clergyman, he continued: "Religion is also a
health-giving means of culture, but it is not the only one."
"Thanks," replied the clergyman, waving his hand, between the thumb and
fore-finger of which he held a pinch of snuff. "But, most honored
doctor, your culture-cure is a brewage of classic and scientific
education, a teaspoonful every hour, to be well shaken before
taken--probatum est."
Amidst general laughter his colleague added:
"Your plan of education would not even give the people new enjoyments.
What do you propose to give them? They have not the coarseness that is
necessary. Look there! Those boys who have been tiring themselves all
the week at harvest work, on Sunday play ten-pins and throw the heavy
balls."
The game of ten-pins was here interrupted, for the railroad train
rushed past; and the boys, who had evidently been waiting for some one,
hastened to the station, which could be seen from the Casino arbor, and
the company exclaimed:
"The Hollanders! There comes Anton Armbruster with the raft-drivers."
Powerful men descended from the cars; they carried cloaks rolled up
tightly on the axes over their shoulders. They came into the inn
garden, and soon sat drinking the foaming beer, surrounded by groups of
friends and strangers. The voices of the raftsmen were loud, and their
laughter sounded like logs rolled over one another. Anton sat with his
father, who had awaited him here. He had regained his old, fresh
appearance; but, from his manner, as well as from that of the miller,
it was easy to see that something had happened that was not to the old
man's liking. To be sure, he touched glasses with his son; but he put
his down again without drinking.
The judge's wife walked up and down the garden with the hostess; but
the latter soon went and said something to Anton. He rose and went
toward the judge's wife, greeting her politely. She gave him her hand,
and went with him toward the vacant promenade by the river side. There
she first gave him the lieutenant's greeting, and then told him where
she had been that day, and what she had experienced. She looked at him
closely and added:
"Thoma is soon coming to see me. May I speak to her of you?"
"Oh, certainly."
"So you did not become engaged in Holland?"
"No, indeed! As long as Thoma does not marry, I too will remain single.
It was very pleasant in Holland. They are very pleasant, hearty people,
and they have got over the stupidity of thinking that we Germans want
to take Holland. They listened to me attentively when I told of the
war, and the eldest daughter of our business friend said to me that she
could listen three days while I told about it."
"Did you like her?"
"Oh yes. She is a beautiful girl, and good-nature shines from her face;
but nevertheless she was not Thoma. As I said, I have not changed.
Look! There comes Peter of Reutershoefen with the wagon. Peter, what's
the matter?"
"My mother is sick, and I have come for the doctor. There isn't much
the matter, but father is so anxious."
"Are all the rest well?"
"Of course they are."
The doctor drove away with Peter, and the judge's wife asked him to
send Thoma to her as soon as she could leave her mother.
Anton, too, soon went home with his father.
The physician on the plateau, and the raft-drivers in the valley, were
overtaken by a severe thunderstorm that burst forth with wind and hail.