period of his life, which he has reported to his nearest friends. He
had a light sleep from early youth, and so he often awoke by the light
of a match, with which in cold, dark nights of winter his mother lit
her lamp to prepare for her early walk. He lay in his warm pillow, and
did not stir until his mother bent over him to see if she had awakened
the little sleeper by the pattering of her slippers. Then he would
throw his arms about her neck and laugh, while she gave him a kiss
and an exhortation to go quickly to sleep again, for the day was far
distant. This exhortation he would obey at once, or else later. In
the latter case he looked at the burning lamp through his half-closed
eye-lids, and at his mother and the shadows on the wall.
Strange it is that all his recollections seem to be of winter; there
was a misty atmosphere about the flame of the lamp; his breath made a
cloud between him and the light; the frozen window-panes glittered,
it was bitter cold, and the comfort he felt in his safe, warm bed was
intermingled with terror of the bitter cold without, which made him
pull the blanket over his nose.
He never could understand why his mother got up so early, while it was
so dark and so cold, and while such queer, black shadows were gliding
along the wall, nodding, rising, and bending. Still more vague were his
thoughts about the places his mother went to; in accordance with his
momentary mood, he pictured them more or less pleasantly, mingling in
all sorts of details taken from fairy-tales, and fragments out of the
conversations of grown persons that he had overheard, and which in
these misty moments between sleeping and waking took on more and more
of a gaudy colouring.
At last his mother was dressed, and once more she bent over the child’s
bed. Again he received a kiss, a great deal of good advice, and many
enticing promises, if he would lie still, not cry, and go to sleep
again. The assurance was added that the morning, and with it Cousin
Schlotterbeck, would be coming ere long; the lamp was blown out, the
room grew dark, the door creaked, the steps of his mother passed away;
soon he was fast asleep, and when he awoke again Cousin Schlotterbeck
was generally sitting by his bedside, and in the adjoining room he
could hear the fire crackle in the stove.
Cousin Schlotterbeck, although she was not much older than Frau
Christine Unwirrsch, had always been Cousin Schlotterbeck. No one in
the Kröppelstrasse knew her by any other designation, and she was as
well known in the Kröppelstrasse as the “old Fritz,” as the Emperor
Napoleon, and old Blücher, although she had no further resemblance to
these celebrated heroes than that she used snuff like the Prussian
king, and had a hooked nose like the “Corsican bloodhound.”
Of right she should have filled a chapter by herself in this book,
for she had a gift of which not every one can boast: to her the dead
had not departed this earth; she saw them walk the streets, she met
them on the market-place as one sees the living, and comes upon them
unexpectedly around the corner. There was nothing weird about this to
her; she spoke of it as of something quite natural and unsurprising,
and to her there was no difference whatever between the Burgomaster
Eckerlein, who had died in the year 1769, and often met her in his wig
and red velvet coat near the apothecary’s shop, and the grandson of
this man, who owned this same apothecary’s shop in the year 1820, and
who was now looking out of the window with no faculty for seeing his
grandfather walking below.
Even in the minds of Cousin Schlotterbeck’s acquaintances this
strange “gift” of hers no longer awakened horror. The unbelieving
ceased scoffing at it, and the believing--of whom there was a goodly
number--did not cross themselves any more. Upon the character of the
good little woman this high favour had no perverting influence. She was
not made supercilious by her marvellous seer’s gift; she took it as
an undeserved favour of God, and remained more humble than many other
people who did not see nearly as much as the oldish spinster in the
Kröppelstrasse.
As far as her external appearance is concerned, Cousin Schlotterbeck
was of medium height, but she stooped perceptibly, and walked with
a far-protruding head. Her clothes hung about her like something
that does not belong there, and her nose was, as we have said, very
sharp and very hooked. It would have impressed one disagreeably,
this nose would, if it had not been for the eyes. But her eyes did
penance for every sin her nose committed; they were remarkable eyes,
and saw remarkable things. Clear and beaming they were up to her old
age,--blue, young eyes in an old, old, dried-up face! Hans Unwirrsch
never forgot them, although he looked into much more beautiful eyes in
his life.
To learning, Cousin Schlotterbeck was devoted in a naïve way. She had
a tremendous admiration for wisdom, and particularly for theological
wisdom; little Hans was indebted to her for an introduction to all
the erudition of which he made himself more or less a possessor in
later times. She could tell fairy-tales which would have delighted the
hearts of the Brothers Grimm, and when the wicked queen put the golden
pin into her stepdaughter’s head, Hans Unwirrsch felt the point of it
piercing through to his very diaphragm.
Hans and the cousin were inseparable during the first years of the
boy’s life. From early morning till late at night the ghost-seer took
the part of a mother to the child; without her advice and help did
nothing occur which related to him; many a time did she appease his
hunger, and many a more subtle hunger did she awake in him.
Hans Unwirrsch was a precocious child, and learned to talk almost
before he walked; reading was to him but play. Cousin Schlotterbeck
understood this difficult art very well, and managed to stumble through
the most incomprehensible big words.
She liked to read aloud, and indulged in a nasal eloquence which was
very impressive to the child. Her library consisted principally of a
Bible, a hymnal, and a long row of almanacs standing in unbroken line
from the year 1790, each of which contained a touching, or comic,
or sensational narrative, as well as a goodly stock of receipts and
nostrums, and a fine collection of funny anecdotes. For a susceptible
childish imagination there lay a world of rare wonder in these old
pamphlets, and spirits of all kinds arose out of them, smiling,
grinning, threatening, and leading the young soul through various
horrors and delights. A still greater impression, however, did the
“book of books,” the Bible, make upon the boy. With shuddering rapture
did Hans sit at the feet of his cousin, and dive into the mysteries of
chaos; the earth was void and empty, until the light came dividing the
darkness and the water under the land from the water over the land.
When sun, moon, and stars began their dance, and signs, times, days,
and years appeared, then he breathed anew; and when the earth brought
forth grass, and leaves, and fruit-trees, and when the water, and the
air, and the earth began to be peopled with moving and living animals,
then he clapped his little hands, and felt ground under him once more.
[Illustration: “WITH SHUDDERING RAPTURE DID HANS SIT AT THE FEET OF HIS
COUSIN.”]
But his days did not pass only with reading and listening to stories.
As soon as Hans Unwirrsch did not throw his hands about aimlessly
any more, or put them into his mouth, his mother and cousin made
haste to introduce him to the great principle of labour. Cousin
Schlotterbeck was an ingenious woman, who managed to earn an extra
penny by dressing dolls for a large factory, an occupation which was
interesting enough for a child, and in which Hans liked to be helpful.
Ladies and gentlemen, peasants and shepherds, and many other little
personages of various social positions and ages, arose under the
skilful fingers of his cousin, who worked away bravely with glue and
with her needle, with bright bits of cloth and gilt paper, of which
she gave a proper share to each, in exact proportion to the price. It
was a philosophical occupation, which left one free to harbour a great
many ideas, and Hans Unwirrsch took kindly to it, although, of course,
his childish pleasure in the toys was soon lost. He who has grown up in
a shop of Jack-in-the-boxes, takes little pleasure in each individual
Jack-in-the-box, be he ever so gaudy and agile in turning up his toes.
After Martinmas, which momentous day unfortunately could not be
celebrated with roast goose, Cousin Schlotterbeck devoted herself to
independent fabrication. She could very profitably apply her talent
to plastic art; she formed little men out of raisins, to be sold at
Christmas, and for more humble minds she made churls out of dried
plums. The first fellow of this latter kind, who was manufactured by
Hans without help, gave him as much pleasure as the hopeful art student
experiences at the sight of the picture which gained him the _prix de
Rome_.
In his fifth year Johannes Jakob Nikolaus Unwirrsch was a little
awkward fellow, in a pair of breeches which had been cut and designed
for him to grow into. Out of bluish-grey eyes he looked merrily
into the world and into the Kröppelstrasse, his nose had nothing
characteristic as yet, his mouth promised fair to grow very large, and
kept its promise. The yellow hair of the boy curled naturally, and was
the prettiest thing about him. He had in every respect an excellent
stomach, like all people who are designed to hunger a great deal in
life; he got through with his A B C with no more difficulty than with
the biggest slice of brown bread and with the fullest soup plate. The
two women, his mother and his cousin, spoiled him, of course, to the
best of their ability, and honoured him as crown-prince, hero, and
world’s wonder, so that it was well when the Government interfered, and
declared him old enough to go to school. Hans Unwirrsch set his foot on
the lowest round of the ladder, which stands by the fruitful tree of
knowledge, the door of the poor-school opened to him, and Silberlöffel,
the schoolmaster, promised Cousin Schlotterbeck at the door that her
“precious boy” should neither be murdered by himself nor by the hundred
and sixty good-for-nothings who were subject to his rule.
“Cousin” departed with a corner of her apron up to her eyes, and
would not be comforted, until near the town well she met the pastor
Primarius Holzapfel, who had died in the year eighteen hundred and
fifteen, attired in his black surplice, with an enormous ruff about
his neck, and a Bible in his hand. “Cousin” had been well acquainted
with the pastor and his parents. His father had been a woodcutter, and
his mother had died in the Hospital of the Holy Spirit; Primarius the
pastor, with whose praise the town still rung, had occupied the very
place in the poor-school to which Silberlöffel was taking little Hans.
In a dark street, in a one-storey building, which had once been an
engine-house, the community had instituted a school for poor children,
after having refused for a long time to give up any building for so
superfluous an object. It was a damp hole; almost at any time of day
you could see the water run down the walls; fungi flourished in the
corners and under the teacher’s desk. The tables and benches were moist
and sticky, and during vacation they were always covered with a thin
coating of mould. The windows it would be best not to mention; it was
no wonder if in their vicinity there were also interesting growths of
fungus. Neither was it a wonder if in the extremities of the teacher
rheumatic knots formed, and in his lungs the most exquisite tubercles.
It was no wonder if at times half of the pupils were ill with a fever.
If the community had been called upon to put a marble monument on every
child’s grave which was dug in the churchyard by its guilt, it would
soon have supplied a new building for the school.
Karl Silberlöffel was the name the teacher signed to the receipts for
the enormous sums which he received quarterly from the State. Alas, the
poor fellow had received this name as it were by the irony of fate;
he had not been born with a silver spoon in his mouth. How can the
Government be expected to bother about the schoolmaster Silberlöffel
so long as the question as to what is the smallest possible amount of
knowledge that may be permitted to the lower classes without harm and
discomfort to the higher is still unsolved? For a long time to come
the gentlemen puzzling over this question will consider the common
schoolmasters as their enemies, and will look upon it as an absurd
and altogether preposterous demand when dangerous and revolutionary
idealists require them to do good unto their enemies, and at least
dress them decently and feed them tolerably well.
Later in life our hero often invited the country schoolmaster at
Grunzenow to his Sunday dinner or his Christmas punch, remembering
these first school-days and the poor-teacher Silberlöffel. Neither did
he object when the schoolmaster on the Baltic put some of the good,
nourishing things set before him into his pocket for his seven boys at
home; he himself would fetch him an old paper to wrap them in, and help
him crowd the bundle into his coat pocket.
In the engine house at Neustadt the girls sat on the right-hand side
and the boys on the left. Between these two divisions there was a
passage from the door up to the teacher’s desk, and in this passage
Silberlöffel walked, coughing, up and down, without one of his charge
being moved thereby to pity. Long, very long, was the poor fellow;
thin, very thin, was he; very melancholy did he look, and he had good
cause.
Another in his place would have raised his spirits, and warmed himself
in the damp, cold room by lustily whipping the boys; but he was beyond
that even. His faint ventures in this line were considered as a good
joke merely; his authority was below zero. A pitiful reproach to all
well-dressed people were the garments of this worthy man; especially
the hat acted a perfect tragedy with its possessor. The point between
the two was which should survive the other, and the hat seemed to
know that it would carry the prize. A diabolical taunt seemed to grin
from out of its boils and scratches. The villain knew that it would
also survive the successor of the consumptive man; it was utterly
indifferent to the mould and the dampness of the engine-house.
[Illustration: “COUPLING TWO AND TWO OF THEM TOGETHER BY FIRMLY
TWISTING THE ENDS OF THEIR HAIR INTO A KNOT.”]
Hans Unwirrsch entered the swarm of poor scholars by no means with
sentimental feelings. After having conquered the first surprise
and embarrassment, after having made himself at home in his new
surroundings, he proved himself to be no better than any other
scapegrace, and to the best of his ability took part in the pleasures
and pains of this praiseworthy public institution. Friends and enemies
among the boys were soon discovered; congenial spirits attached
themselves to him, the uncongenial tried to pull him out of his views
of life by the hairs of his head, and in single combat as in general
skirmish he often came to grief, which, however, he bore like a manly
chap, without seeking refuge behind his teacher. As a manly chap he
also had, at this period of his life, a healthy aversion toward the
female sex upon the benches at the right of the passage. He was fond of
putting shoemaker’s wax on the girls’ seats, and of coupling two and
two of them together by firmly twisting the ends of their hair into a
knot; he looked upon them with sovereign disdain as inferior creatures,
who knew no other means of defence than shrieking, and through whom the
schoolmaster was better informed about the left half of his school than
the boys relished. At first there was not the least trace of chivalrous
impulses and feelings within his bosom, but the time which was to hail
the first awaking dawn in this respect was not far distant, and soon
there was _one_ little creature on the other side of the school who
made her influence felt upon Hans Unwirrsch. There came a time when he
could not bear to see _one_ little fellow-pupil cry, and when he felt
a nameless longing, which was not directed toward the great slices
of bread and butter and hunches of cake which he saw other children
devour upon the street; but for the present he impudently put his
hands in the pockets of his baggy breeches, set his legs far apart,
put himself firmly on his feet, and sought to emancipate himself as
far as possible from the absolutism of womankind. No more now did he
sit quiet and patient at the feet of Cousin Schlotterbeck and listen
reverently to her teachings and exhortations, her fairy-tales and
almanac stories, and her Bible readings. To the great discomfort of
the good old lady did he daily manifest a more critical spirit. The
almanac stories he knew by heart; no sooner did the “Cousin” begin
a fairy-tale than he interrupted her to suggest emendations and ask
impertinently ironical questions; to her kind exhortations he always
offered confusing objections, which more than once put the good lady
quite out of countenance. When, as was her custom, the good soul got
entangled in a long-breathed genealogical row of biblical names, Hans
took a truly diabolical pleasure therein, and tried to drive the
poor creature deeper into the thorns, so that she at last with angry
virulence would clap the book to and call her quondam “little lamb” a
“saucy good-for-nothing.” Behind her back he was up to all sorts of
trickery; yes, he went so far as to caricature her person before a
select audience in the Kröppelstrasse, consisting of persons of his own
age. In short, Hans Jakob Nikolaus Unwirrsch had now reached that stage
in life during which loving relations with darkly melancholy looks
and warning gestures prognosticated to this hopeful scion or youthful
acquaintance a dark future, the beggar’s staff, prison, penitentiary,
and at last, as an agreeable conclusion, a disgraceful death on the
gallows. It is well that prophecies usually are not fulfilled.
Naturally Hans now felt more drawn to his Uncle Grünebaum than to his
mother and cousin. The original cobbler had much about him that was
attractive to the youthful mind. To Hans, when in the company of this
worthy man, time seldom seemed to drag.
[Illustration: “READING THE ‘TOWN AND COUNTRY HERALD’ WITH A LOUD VOICE
TO HIMSELF AND HIS BIRDS.”]
Very dirty and neglected did the household and surroundings of Uncle
Grünebaum look to any respectable woman. In his workshop it looked as
if brownies had made their home, not with kindly intentions, but in the
most bitter ire. A wilder topsy-turvy can scarcely be pictured. Uncle
Grünebaum spent the greater part of his day and of his work-hours in
hunting for something or other. The tool he was in search of was never
to be found, and rummaging for it did not benefit the general aspect of
things. Over and above all there was a perpetual noise of whistling,
singing, and screeching birds in large and small cages upon the walls;
a tree-frog in a glass by the window foretold the weather. But as
for the political weather, Meister Grünebaum foretold it to himself,
reading the _Town and Country Herald_ with a loud voice to himself
and his birds, an occupation which also took up a good deal of his
work-time. The worthy Uncle Grünebaum did only just so much cobbling
as was necessary to keep him and his birds alive, and to pay for the
_Herald_. His glass at the alehouse was oftener scored than is good for
a respectable citizen and shoemaker.
During this period of his restless life Hans decidedly preferred the
street and its details to domestic happiness, to the quiet undisturbed
peace of his own home. Oh, thou blessed time of dirty hands and
bleeding noses, of torn jackets and rumbled hair! Woe to the man who
has never known thee! It were better for him if he had not known
some other things which loving relations and friends with the darkly
melancholy look blandly praised and recommended!
_Wilhelm Raabe._
_NEWSPAPER HUMOUR._
_Shoemakers Apprentice_ (passing by a baker’s stand): “Got any stale
rolls?”
_Baker_: “Yes, my lad.”
_Apprentice_: “Serves you right. You should have sold ’em when they
were fresh.”
IN COURT.--_Judge_: “How is it that you picked up a number of
comparatively worthless articles, and left the money, which was close
at hand, untouched?”
_Criminal_: “I hope your honour won’t find fault with me for that. My
wife has been hard enough on me about it.”
_Restaurant-keeper_ (to guest reading his paper): “I am very sorry,
sir, to be obliged to ask you not to lunch here in future. You shake
your head all the time. _I_ know it’s the politics, but others don’t
know it, and it’s hurting my reputation.”
AT A RESTAURANT.--“This beefsteak is so tough the knife won’t go
through.”
_Restaurant-keeper_: “Waiter, another knife for the gentleman.”
[Illustration: “GOODNESS, HOW YOU LOOK, CHILD!”]
_Father_: “Goodness, how you look, child!”
_Frankie_: “I fell into the canal.”
_Father_: “What! With your new trousers on?”
_Frankie_: “I didn’t have time to take ’em off.”
“ALLOW me, Mademoiselle, to present this to you.”
“No, no, I do not wish to accept a present.”
“It is a volume of my poems.”
“Ah, that is different. I could not have permitted you to give me
anything _valuable_.”
_Judge_ (to an individual notorious for thievish proclivities): “I was
told you stole wood the other day. That is not true, is it, Peter?”
_Peter_: “Nay, Herr Judge.”
_Judge_: “The policeman says he found the wood at your house. That
can’t be so?”
_Peter_: “Nay, Herr Judge.”
_Judge_: “Well, Peter, I’ll sentence you to six weeks in gaol. That’s
not too much, is it?”
_Peter_: “Nay, Herr Judge.”
“I WONDER why that gentleman over there is holding the paper up before
his face for such an interminable length of time?”
“The explanation is very simple. Because his tailor happens to be
sitting at our table.”
A CONSIDERATE YOUTH.--_Aunt_: “Well, Fritz, I hear you were flogged in
school to-day?”
_Fritz_: “Yes, but it didn’t hurt.”
_Aunt_: “I thought I heard you cry.”
_Fritz_: “I did that to please the teacher.”
“YOU advertise your socks to have fast colours, and now I had on a
pair for two days, and for a fortnight I have not been able to get the
colour off from my feet.”
“Well, don’t you call that a fast colour? What more can you wish?”
AT THE LIVERY STABLE.--“How much do you ask for this horse by the hour?”
“One thaler.”
“That is, I trust, counting up to the time when the horse returns? It
is quite likely I shall be here somewhat later!”
_Doctor_: “I know just what will help you. You must drink two cups of
very strong tea every morning.”
_Patient_: “Why, that is just what I have done for years.”
_Doctor_: “Then you must stop it.”
“HENRY, my cigars are disappearing at a great rate. Is it possible that
within the short time you have been in my service----”
“Never fear, sir; I have three boxes full left from my last master.”
_Lieutenant A._ (relating his gallant adventures at the ball): “A
crowd of ladies stood about me, waiting for me to say something very
brilliant.”
_Lieutenant B._: “Of course you kept them in suspense.”
_Lieutenant A._: “Most certainly I did.”
_New Burgomaster_: “No celebrity ever been born in this town?”
_First Citizen_: “Not yet, unfortunately; but all that will be
different under your administration.”
_A._ (to a young doctor): “How many rooms have you?”
_B._: “First, there is a waiting-room.”
_A._: “Pardon me for interrupting you. What do you call a waiting-room?
Is it a room in which your patients wait for you, or one in which you
wait for patients?”
_A._: “Dr. Krampel has saved my life.”
_B._: “I did not know that you were ever in his treatment.”
_A._: “No, when I consulted him he advised me to go to another
physician.”
POETRY AND PROSE.--“Tell me what it was that inspired you to write this
glorious poem?”
_Poet_: “My youngest needed a new suit of clothes.”
_Lady_ (roguishly to her partner): “So you too are a conductor on the
road to Hades?”
_Young Physician_: “You mistake, I am less than that--in fact, merely a
brakesman!”
_Baroness_: “Your daughter will find a kind mistress in me. I trust she
is accustomed to work and to early rising?”