"Heart, my heart, why weep'st thou sadly?Why so still, and why so grave?Sure the stranger's land is lovely:Heart, my heart, what wouldst thou have?"
"Heart, my heart, why weep'st thou sadly?
Why so still, and why so grave?
Sure the stranger's land is lovely:
Heart, my heart, what wouldst thou have?"
As the sound died away, the teacher felt the full force of the music in his soul. He took up his violinThe teacher took up his violin and played.and played that remarkable waltz ascribed to Beethoven,--Le Désir. Nothing of the kind had ever been heard in the village, and a crowd soon assembled at the window. To please them as well as himself, he struck up another waltz, full of life and frolic. The shouts and laughter of the listeners rewarded him.
Tired at last of solitude, he left the house, and, meeting Mat, inquired where Buchmaier might be looked for.
"Come along," was the answer: "he's at the Eagle every Friday night."
The teacher complied, though he thought it very wrong for the squire to be sitting in the tavern like anybody else. He found a large concourse, engaged in animated conversation. The Jews, who are generally out of the village at other times, were now mingling with their Christian fellow-citizens and drinking: they testified their reverence for the Sabbath only by abstaining from the use of tobacco.
After a brief halt consequent upon the new schoolmaster's entrance, Buchmaier, who had made room for him at the table, continued his remarks:--
"As I was saying, Thiers wanted to do France brown with a slice of German lard; but he's found the mess too salt for his fancy, and another time he won't be so greedy. What do you think of it, Mr. Teacher?"
"You're very right; but we ought to have Alsace back again besides."
"So we ought, only the Alsatians won't come back. The last time I was in Strasbourg I was right-down ashamed of myself the way they treated me,--wanting to know whether we wouldn't soon have some more counterfeit money that didn't belong anywhere. A real fine man I met with said that the office-holders over there would like to be German very much, because here they are paid best and cared for to the third and fourth generation, and sure of their places, but in France they can't come it quite so strong. And, if it was to be German again, who should have it? A son of the counterfeit sixer? I believe there's one in circulation yet? Or a sweated Hanoverian ten-guilder piece? I guess they wouldn't give it to any one alone: they'd cut it into snips, just as they chipped up the left bank of the Rhine, so that everybody might see it was German and no mistake."
"While the teacher sat dumb with, astonishment at this audacious utterance, a stout man, whose dress and accent bespoke the Israelite, began:--
"Yes; and the Jews in Alsatia--there's lots of 'em, too--would rather be butchered than made Germans of. Over there they're every whit as good as the Christian citizens, and here they pay the same taxes and serve in the army just like the Christiana, and only have half their rights."
"You're right, Mendle, but you won't be righted," replied Buchmaier.
After a pause, Buchmaier began again:--
"Mr. Teacher, what do you think of the cruelty-to-animals societies? Can anybody tell me not to do as I like with my own? Can anybody punish me for such things?"
In this question again the teacher saw nothing but coarseness and barbarity: with vehemence he advocated the ordinances and regulations prohibiting the practices in question. Buchmaier rejoined:--
"In cities it may be right enough to admonish people not to be hard on their cattle; but punishing is nobody's business. These coachmen and omnibus-drivers and liveried officials--I mean to say, liveried servants--have no feeling for their cattle, because very often they don't even own 'em, and, as for having raised 'em, that's not to be thought of. But in the country I've seen people cry more when one of their cows falls than when their children die."
"The gentlefolks ought to stop being cruel to the peasants first," said Mat. "The old judge always talked to his dog as if it was his baby, and snarled at the farmers as if they were other people's dogs. Let them get up a society first that nobody's to say 'sirrah' to a farmer any more."
"Yes," said Buchmaier: "the point of the joke is that the office-holders would like to have a little government over the cattle. Mark my words: if things go on this way it won't be ten years before a man will receive a command that he's to plant this and not that, and that he's to plough this field and let that lie fallow: there'll be societies about cruelty to the fields, and all that sort of thing."
"If men are not rational enough," said the teacher, "to be moderate in all things, it is the duty of the state to inculcate what is good by the fear of punishment."
"Never, if I live a hundred years," said Buchmaier, fiercely, suddenly checking himself, however, either because he bethought himself of the dignity of his station, or because he really had nothing else to say. He emptied his glass by slow pulls; while a man with curled hair, somewhat grizzled, said, in High German, but still in the singing tone of the Jews, "Men may be punished for doing wrong; but there's no such thing as forcing them to be good: goodness effected by compulsion is not goodness."
"Right," said Buchmaier. The teacher, however, did not heed the remark: it is not to be supposed that, like other learned men, he chose to treat an objection urged by a Jew as if it had not been uttered; but he probably regarded Buchmaier alone as his adversary, for he asked him,--
"Do you believe that the state has a right to compel people under a penalty, to send their children to school?"
"Of course; of course."
"But why?"
"Because that's all right and proper."
"But you say we have no right to compel people to be good."
"Yes; but you can punish people when they do wrong; and a man does wrong who won't send his child to school. Isn't it so?" he concluded, turning to the man who had spoken before.
"Certainly," answered the latter. "The state is the guardian of those who don't know how to take care of themselves. Just as it is its duty to watch over a child that has lost its parents, so it must vindicate its rights when infringed by those who are too mean or too ignorant to do their duty by them."
"Right; just right," said Buchmaier, triumphantly.
Without either addressing or avoiding the speaker, whom he regarded as an interloper, the teacher said, "If the state is the guardian of the unprotected and the defenceless, it is also bound to see to the well-being of the cattle, for they are in like case as children are."
"Apple-cores and pear cider! How came the beets into the potato-sack?" said Buchmaier, laughing. "By your leave, Mr. Teacher, you've got into a snarl there. I've a heifer at home that hasn't a father nor a mother; and I'll have to call the town-meeting to-morrow to appoint a guardian."
Roars of laughter shook the building. The teacher made great efforts to define his position, but could not obtain a hearing. The whole company were but too glad to see the conversation--which had become almost serious--turn into this comical by-way. All he could do was to protest that he had never intended to rank children and cattle alike.
"Oh, of course not!" said Buchmaier. "Why, you kissed Mat's Johnnie to-day, and that's more than anybody does to a beast. But now it seems as if I was three times more certain than ever that these cruelty-to-animals societies are like tying up the hens' tails,--as if they didn't carry them upright, anyhow."
The tide of merriment swelled into a torrent, and what it carried on its bosom was not all of dainty texture. The teacher was not in a mood to be carried away by the current: on the contrary, it harassed and worried him. He soon quitted the inn with that gnawing sensation which befalls us when we have been misunderstood because not heard to the end. He perceived how difficult it is to lead an assemblage of grown persons through the profound and exhaustive analysis of any subject. But, leaving this train of thought, he soon suffered himself to suppose that he had met with that phase of barbarism which consists not in the absence of polish, but in the conceited disdain of culture and refinement. He was much mortified. The resolution to confine himself exclusively to the companionship of docile childhood and of uncorrupted nature was confirmed in his mind.
Next day (Saturday) the teacher called on the councilmen, but found none of them at home. His last errand was to the old schoolmaster, whose house he found at the lower end of a pretty garden which opened on the road. The beds were measured with lead and string, and skirted with box; the hedge of beech which enclosed the whole was smoothly shorn, and, at regular intervals, little stems rose over the hedge, crowned with spherical foliage. In the midst was a rotunda, forming a natural basin, girt with box and garnished with all sorts of buds and flowers. At the foot of the garden, near the arbor, voices were heard in conversation. Advancing in that direction, he said to the two men whom he found there,--
"Can I see Mr. Schoolmaster?"
"Two of 'em: ha, ha!" said the elder, who was without a coat, and had a hoe in his hand.
"I mean the old schoolmaster."
"That's me; and this is the Jew teacher: ha, ha!" answered the man with the hoe, pointing to his companion, who was dressed as befits the Sabbath.
"I am glad to have the pleasure of meeting you also. Have we not seen each other before?"
"Yes,--when you were conversing with the squire."
The old gentleman threw away his hoe, took his pipe out of his mouth, and seized his coat, for the purpose of putting it on,--a design against the execution of which our friend interfered.
"We must not stand upon ceremony," said he: "we are colleagues. I am the new teacher. Is this garden your property?"
"Ha, ha! 'should think it was," replied he. Every word he said was accompanied with a peculiar chuckle, which appeared to come from his inmost soul. "Welcome to Nordstetten," he added, extending his hand, and shaking that of the newcomer with a grip which reminded him of Goetz von Berlichingen.
I am the new teacher.
The Jewish teacher stood rubbing his hands in great embarrassment. He knew not whether to offer his hand or not. He feared to be thought obtrusive, as he was not the object of the visit; and, again, he was disposed to resent this want of attention as a slight, and dreaded lest his dignity should be compromised by an advance on his part.
These mingled feelings--the fear of obtrusiveness and ill-will on the one hand, and of excessive sensitiveness on the other--are the two thieves between which Jew is crucified in the conventional intercourse of European society, and must continue to be so until his social position shall become firm and well defined.
Like all educated Jews of the older generation, the Jewish teacher was conversant with the text of the Bible, and never forgot the maxims, "Love the stranger, for ye were strangers also in the land of Egypt," and, "Offend not the stranger, for ye know his thoughts." He remembered the pleasure he had himself derived, years before, from a smiling welcome. Thus he stood, his lips moving silently, and the muscles of his face twitching. At length he stepped up to the new-comer, extended his hand, and expressed his pleasure in his arrival. The stranger said, "You would certainly do me a great favor, gentlemen, by giving me some advice in reference to my line of conduct. I know no one here."
"I can understand that very well," replied the Jewish teacher. "I also came here for no other reason than that I was sent by the consistory, and did not know a soul. I often longed for a charm to make myselfincognitofor a while, so as to study closely the character of the parents; for, without the parents to help you, nothing is to be done with the children. What made matters particularly difficult for me was that it became my duty, twenty-five years ago, to organize a regular school,--a matter till then entirely unknown among the Jews. At first it seemed to me that I had been spirited into a strange world by enchantment."
"Yes, you came into an enchantment soon enough, and married the prettiest girl in the village: ha, ha! And so you ought," fell in the old man. Turning to our friend, he continued,--"You must marry a girl from our village, too."
The new teacher recoiled in such haste as to set his foot ruinously into one of the immaculate flower-beds. After stammering out an apology, he said, "I only refer to my relations with the parents and the children."
"Be strict with them: that's the main point," said the old gentleman, repairing the damage with the hoe. "As to the new ways of teaching, I don't understand them. They ask the children, 'Who made the table?'--just as if they didn't know that without teaching. And then they give only the sounds of h, k, l, m, like the dumb, and the alphabet's gone out of fashion entirely."
"Strict, you say?" interposed the new teacher, to avoid the shoals and quicksands of a discussion.
"Yes. Of all the men running about the village now, there's not one who hasn't had his good salting down from me many and many a time; and I leave it to you whether they don't respect me to this day."
"Most certainly," responded the Jewish teacher, smiling. The old gentleman went on:--"And when there's a festivity in the village it won't do to play the gentleman of refinement and look on a while to see how the ignorant vulgar amuse themselves; but you must go in and help them. I've been the wildest among 'em all. The barber's dance they learned from me, and the seven-league jump I always led them in, with my Madge: my legs itch when I think of it."
"You were born and bred here, and had no need of establishing a reputation."
"I was not born and bred here. All this country fell to Wurtemberg in the year five: before that time it had belonged to Austria. I was born at Freiburg."
"You have seen much of life?"
"I should think so. People that are thirty years old nowadays don't know any thing of the world, for now every thing rolls as smoothly as a tenpin-alley. I don't refer to you: but what can a teacher be expected to know nowadays? Where has he been in the world? In books up to the eyes. Every thing runs like clock-work now, and it's one, two, three, pupil, student, teacher. I was a soldier, a musician, and a court clerk, in the lands of many rulers. I have gone through with Russians, and Frenchmen, and Saxons, and other deviltry. I began a copy-book here, in the finest of German text; and when I'd got as far as F, down came those lubberly Frenchmen, and they turned all our German text into French; and there was an end of it."
Leaning on his hoe, he went on to tell the two grand stories of his life,--the one of a pot containing two hundred florins, which he had buried in the cellar, but which the French discovered notwithstanding, and the other of how, on a bitter cold winter's day, he had gone with the parson to Eglesthal to administer extreme unction to an old woman, and they were met by a Cossack, who relieved the teacher of his mittens of fox's skin. An elaborate description of the mittens was interrupted by the stroke of eleven, which put an end to the colloquy. Our friend walked with the Jewish teacher to the Eagle, where he had taken board.
Next morning the new teacher's performance on the organ attracted great admiration. From various groups which formed as the congregation were leaving the church, the remark was heard,--
"He's 'most as good as the old teacher."
He sought out the latter, and requested him to officiate in the afternoon.
The old man laughed with joy,I was sub-organist in the Freiburg Cathedral.and said at last, in the short, broken sentences usual to him, "Oh, yes! young folks can learn something if they wish to. I was sub-organist in the Freiburg Cathedral for two years and a half: ha, ha! Yes, the last professor drove me out of the church. I didn't go there for a whole year: I couldn't stand his squeaking; and even after that I only went to mass, and to hear the sermon: when the singing began I had to run away."
He played in the afternoon; but the bizarre and fantastic movements he made on the sacred instrument caused the young man more than once to shake his head. The rest of the auditory, however, gave tokens of unalloyed satisfaction.
For his attention to the old teacher the new one was greatly praised; while he was blamed in the same degree for calling on the councilmen on a weekday, when he might have known they could not be found at home. Of both praise and blame the teacher remained equally unconscious.
On Monday the school began. The parson, a man of pleasing manners and high tone of character, introduced the teacher to his new sphere of duties with a pithy address, in the presence of the entire council and committee of citizens.
From this day forth the teacher ceased to take his dinner at the public house: the noise and confusion of the place disturbed him, and he wished to be left to himself after the unruly tribe of children was dismissed. In fact, he lived a life of entire seclusion: the duties of his station were consciensciously performed, but beyond that he studiously avoided all society.He rambled alone through the woods and fields.At rare intervals only would he take a walk in company with the Jewish teacher or with the old one. The latter he soon fathomed. In the mind of the former the foreground was occupied by the political and social affairs of his brethren, and he found but little congenial to his own turn of thinking. The remainder of the citizens--even Buchmaier himself--were as much strangers to him as before he had entered the village. He never went to the inn, nor ever joined the knots of talkers assembled in front of some of the houses, after dark. When school was over, he rambled alone through the woods and fields, sketched the landscape, or took notes of his thoughts and feelings. In the evening he read, or practised on his violin.
As we cannot produce copies of his drawings nor repeat his musical performances, we must content ourselves with a copy of his reflections, under the title given them by the author himself.
"(Lying on the grass.) Every resuscitation is mingled with remnants of decay which it displaced. Look at the pastures in spring, and you will find many a day blade of last year's growth amid the fresh grass of the present: its destiny is to wither away and serve as manure for future crops. When fools perceive this, they say, 'There is no spring, and there never will be: look at these wilted wisps.' Is it not the same case with all intellectual growth? Is not the old schoolmaster a blade of dry grass of this sort?
"To me all nature is but a symbol of the mind: it appears like a mere mask, behind which the mind is hidden. These poor peasants! They live in this free growth of nature with the same feelings as if they inhabited a dead-house: in all the fields and woods they see nothing but the profit, the number of sheaves, the sacks of potatoes, the cords of wood: I alone inhale the spiritual essence that breathes from it all. Let me turn my eyes from these human grubs who creep sightlessly through all this splendor; let me elevate my thoughts above this paltry traffic, and as the bee makes honey from the spiked thistle which the ass merely swallows, so let me derive the sweet intellectual savor out of all things. Assist me, thou Eternal Mind, and let me not be like those who cleave to the sod until the sod rolls over their coffins! And you, ye master-minds of my nation, whose works have followed me hither, strengthen me, and let me sit at your feet continually.
"Every patch of ground has its history. Could any one unravel the mutations which transferred it from hand to hand, and the fortunes and sentiments of those who tilled it, he would understand the history of the human race; while its geological structure, traced to the centre of the earth, would unfold all the developments of the earth's formation.
"Every thing on earth becomes the food, or in some way the consumption, of something else: man alone appropriates all things, himself remaining free and unsubdued until the earth opens and swallows up his body. This brings me, by a way of my own, to the commonplace remark that man is the lord of the earth. But there is really no other truth but that self-acquired knowledge which we attain by the labor of our own spirits.
"I once heard, or read, that it is only where the number of domestic animals exceeds that of human beings that a state of society obtains in which all may be comfortable and none need be wretched.
"Is there a parallel truth,--that the number of irrational men must always be greater than that of men of reason?
"A dreadful thing to think of! And yet----
"It is clear that agriculture was the beginning and the first occasion of civilization. As long as men depended on hunting and fishing, they were but like the beasts, whoseektheir subsistence. It was when they began topreparetheir food, by observing and directing the natural laws of vegetation, planting and nursing, that they first attached themselves to particular spots, and were impelled to study the elements and their combinations, and to exert an influence upon the world without and the world within them.
"Agriculture is the root of all civilization; and yet the agriculturists of the known world have never tasted but a small portion of its fruits. Is this unavoidable?
"Upon the unsteady flower that rocks in the breeze the bee makes her perch and gathers her honey: thus man enjoys the fleeting things of earthly life, while all things rock under his feet.
"(At the Beech-Pond.) A drop from the sky falls into the pond, forms a little bubble for a while, then bursts, and mingles with the morass; another falls into the stream and becomes a part of the living billow. Is my existence like that of such a rain-drop? Then let me be resolved into a living stream: it must be so.
"Every bird flees from the rain: only the swallow revels in it.
"When I go abroad to refresh myself with a little bodily fatigue, I meet the farmers returning wearied from their work: it almost makes me ashamed to be out sauntering.
"In the morning and in the evening we perceive the changes between light and darkness; yet this change is going on to the same extent throughout the day.
"Is not the development of the human mind in the same case?
"I have looked upon numberless sunsets, and yet no two were alike. Such is the endless variety of nature; and therein lies its inexhaustible beauty.
"In watching the sunset, we are tempted to suppose that from where we stand, as far as the western horizon, the red glow of evening extends and there is light, but that behind us all is darkness. Those again who stand farther eastward imagine that the light extends quite to their feet, though no farther. Thus every man measures the horizon from the little spot on which he stands, and all regard themselves as the last remnants of enlightenment.
"Why is a sunset more attractive to most men than a sunrise?
"Is it because but few ever see the latter, or because that which departs has more of our sympathies? I think not. The sunset comes to a beautiful mysterious close in the shade of night and the stillness of universal rest; but the sunrise never comes to a conclusion: it is dissipated in the glare and noise and turmoil of the day. Beautiful is death! Oh, how I long----
"(Behind the manor-house garden.) When a post is driven into the earth, the end must be charred to keep it from decay: he who is touched by the fire of the mind can never die.
"The hide of one poor beast is sliced into harness for another. The application is easy.
"If a man is told that a place he desires to reach is nearer than it really is, his fatigue is doubled,--the result probably of his over-eagerness to get to the end of his journey.
"I have erred in thinking the way to the goal of my life shorter than it turns out to be.
"In mowing you must take short steps and walk forward in a straight line. The more sparse the clover, the more fatigue in the labor: the scythe reels about the hard earth, and at last plunges in the air without effecting any result. Significant!
"Green feed, and every thing brought home in the sap, is free from tithes.
"In cutting corn, the reaper must lay the swath behind him, so as to have nothing before him but the blades still standing. So with the deeds that we have done. They must be out of the sight, so that all our attention may be turned upon what yet remains to do.
"When in the distance I see the mowers bowing and rising so regularly, it seems as if they were going through some ceremonious ritual of prayer.
"The new paling of the manor-house garden is being painted green. Dry wood rots in wind and weather if not covered with a coating. Nature furnishes a secure vestment for all her creatures: men tear off these natural coats and are compelled to replace them with artificial ones.
"What if education were nothing more than oil-paint, a poor surrogate for the fresh lustre of Nature? No: it is Nature itself, elevated, purified; men like those around me here----
"Valentine, the old carpenter, is so forgetful that he walks along the road with the cart-whip on his shoulder, and cries 'Hoy!' without perceiving that his cows have turned into a wrong road forty yards behind him. Is not this the lot of many rulers?
"In a garden by the roadside is a weeping willow, the boughs of which have been tied and twisted into all sorts of ellipses, circles, oblique and right angles, until they have taken this shape permanently.
"The boughs of sorrow are tractable, and may be cramped into almost any deformity; still, the irrepressible vigor of Nature will restore the original growth and proportion. What is it that makes farmers so fond of distorting Nature? Why are they so prone to maltreat the weeping willow, the loveliest of trees? Perhaps there lies at the very root of human nature a disposition to indemnify one's self for a year's hard labor by making a plaything of the subject of it on a holiday.
"(At the crucifix in the Target Field.) Although there were some Jews living in the place where I was born, I never thought much about them. I only remember that when a little boy, like the other little boys, I jeered and even struck the little Jews at every opportunity.
"It as little occurs to us to meditate upon our relation to the Jews as upon that we hold to horses or other cattle. On the contrary, the Bible inspires every Christian child with an indistinct impression of having received some personal wrong at the hands of every individual of the Jewish persuasion. A mysterious abhorrence of them gradually settles upon the infant mind. I involuntarily regarded every Jew as having some disease of the skin. A child thus educated will caress an animal, but never a Jew.
"I am now thrown into frequent intercourse with the Jews. The Jewish teacher is a man remarkably free from prejudice, and possessed of a degree of culture such as I have not often met with. He is more conversant with theology than with the natural sciences. Is that the case with Jews in general? His method of instruction is highly intellectual, but a little wanting in system and regularity,--a disadvantage for children not extraordinarily gifted. A strange sensation overcame me on my first visit to the synagogue. The Hebrew words have wandered from the slopes of Lebanon to these German pine-forests. And yet, is not our religion derived from the same spot? Again, while ancient Rome could not vanquish the Germans, nor make them speak the language of the Capitol, modern Rome perfected the achievement. Every Sunday the Roman language is heard upon these distant hills.
"Over against the school-house is the so-called Burned Spot, the site of the house in which a whole Hebrew family--the grandmother, daughter-in-law, and five grandchildren--fell a victim to the flames. It is now the favorite resort of children when they wish to play at hide-and-seek. The old ruins abound in choice hiding-places. The rosy-cheeked boys clamber up and down the blackened walls, and shout and yell; just where the flames crawled! Such things occur in the history of great things also.
"The bel-wether dance has just been held. "These things are no longer suited to our times: they are a feature of the Middle Ages. Then the lord of the manor may have looked with complacency from the turret of his castle upon the follies of his villeins: he had given them the wether and the ribbon, and probably gave the winning pair pittance of a marriage-portion. All these things are at an end; and why continue the form of that which no longer has a substance?
"Sometimes a chord of the music steals out into the fields and strikes upon my ear; but it is only the braying of the grand trumpet that becomes thus distinguishable. Like me, the peasants here are beyond the reach of the harmonies produced by the intellectual efforts of humanity: not until the great trumpet brays or the bass-drum rattles does a solitary link attach them to the mighty chain, and, for a space, they keep step with the pace of time. Of the gentle adagio and the more intricate harmonies they know nothing.
Spots of ground are always to be found in which no man has a property.
"It is well that spots of ground are always to be found in which, strictly speaking, no man has a property, and where the poor may pluck their bundles of grass without molestation. Such are the steep banks, cliffs, gulches, and so on. And where even the poor can no longer find a footing, the goat--the companion of the needy--makes her way and picks a scented herb or an aromatic twig.
"On 'wood-days' the poor are allowed to appropriate the dry boughs of the green trees. I have read somewhere that kind Nature herself instituted this traditional charity, and throws to the poor the crumbs of her laden board. The poor and the dry sticks.
"The weeds in the corn-fields are also no man's property until the poor take them away and convert them into nutritious food. Do you ask, of what use are weeds? Perhaps many other things should be judged by the same rule."
These leaves were the product of three months of comparative solitude. His habit of writing when abroad had been discovered, and had subjected him to various uncharitable suspicions. As the reader may have divined, many of them were but the answers given by the peasants to questions on matters very familiar to them, and indeed to everybody except the very learned men of learned Germany. The villagers were at their wits' end. They could not conceive how any one could be ignorant of these matters.
Those who travel afoot must have noticed the demeanor of peasants when asked the way to a place in the immediate neighborhood. At first they suspect that a joke is being played upon them; and then they give an explanation which presupposes a perfect acquaintance with other localities in point of fact equally unknown to the questioner. Yet educated men are often no wiser. Perfectly at home in a certain sphere of ideas, they take for granted that every one else is equally so, and explain themselves in such a manner as to leave the hearer more mystified than he was before.
Of course the teacher was no better known to the villagers than they to him. Very few of them had ever heard his name. One thing, however, they had discovered,--that the teacher came from Lauterbach; and this single fact was used by the wit and humor of the village as the rod with which to punish his pride and reserve. In the evening, whenever he was known to be in, the young fellows assembled under his window and sang the "Lauterbacher" without cessation. As he had taken the part of the societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals, they generally wound up with,--
"I won't sing any more:A mouse ran over the floor;I'll hunt it and I'll find it,Put out its eyes and blind it,Take out my knife and skin it,And lay it out and pin it,"&.c. &c. &c.
"I won't sing any more:
A mouse ran over the floor;
I'll hunt it and I'll find it,
Put out its eyes and blind it,
Take out my knife and skin it,
And lay it out and pin it,"
&.c. &c. &c.
This piece of vulgarity vexed the teacher; but he never quite understood the meaning of it all until the College Chap joined the singers; for, though a married man, he could not forego the privilege of being the leader in all sorts of mischief. He made a new verse, which was repeated again and again:--
"At Lauterbach I was born so proud,And proud I am going to die:Oh, carry me back to Lauterbach:That is where I ought to lie."
"At Lauterbach I was born so proud,
And proud I am going to die:
Oh, carry me back to Lauterbach:
That is where I ought to lie."
A light flashed upon the teacher's mind. It grieved him to the soul to find himself thus abused by those whom he meant so well. He mourned within-doors, and without the noise grew louder and louder. He gathered himself up, intending to open the window and address the crowd in conciliation: luckily, however, his eye fell upon his violin, and, taking it down, he played the air of the song with which they were persecuting him. There was a sudden silence below, interrupted by low chucklings. Presently the singing recommenced, and the teacher resumed the accompaniment as often as the provocation was repeated.
At length he appeared at the window, saying, "Is that the way?"
"Yes," was the general answer; and from this time forth he was unmolested,--for he had shown that his temper was proof against teasing.
But on this occasion he formed the resolution of seeking intercourse with his neighbors more than formerly. He saw that his duties to his fellows were not circumscribed by the school-room.
The execution of this design was not long without its reward.
One Sunday afternoon, on returning from church-service, he took his way by the street which skirted the hill-side, called the "Bruck," or Bridge. An old woman was sitting in front of her house with her hands folded and her head shaking with palsy. He said, kindly,--
"How do you do? The sunshine does you good, doesn't it?"
"Thank you, kind gentleman," answered the old woman, still nodding.
The teacher stood still.
"You have seen many summers, haven't you?" said he.
"Seventy-eight: a good number. Seventy years is the life of man, says the Scripture. I often think Death must have forgotten me. Well, our Lord God will fetch me in his own good time: he knows when. I sha'n't get out of his sight."
"But you seem to keep up very well."
"Not very well,--the cramp; but this helps it." She pointed to the gray threads she had tied around her arms, the veins of which were swollen.
"What is that?"
"Why, a pure virgin spun this before she broke her fast in the morning, and spoke the Lord's Prayer three times while she did it. If you put that round your arm, and don't cry out about it, and speak the prayer to the Lord's holy three nails nine times over, it drives away the cramp. I have to cough so much," she said, pointing to her chest, to excuse the frequent interruptions in her speech.
"Who spun the threads for you?" inquired the teacher, again.
"My Hedwig,--my grand-daughter. Don't you know her? Who are you?"
"I am the new teacher."
"And don't know my Hedwig! Why, she's one of the choristers. What's the world coming to, I'd just like to know! The schoolmaster doesn't know the choristers any more!
"I used to sing in the choir myself,--though, to hear me cough, you wouldn't think so. I was a smart lass: oh, yes. I was fit enough to be seen: and once a year there was a grand dinner, and the parson and the schoolmaster were there. Oh, they did use to sing the funniest songs then, about the Bavarian Heaven, and such things! That's all over now: the world isn't what it used to be when I was young."
"You love your grand-daughter very much, don't you?"
"She is the youngest. Oh, my Hedwig is one of the old sort; she lifts me up and lays me down, and never gives me an unkind word. I almost wish to die, just for her good,--she's kept home so much on account of me; and, after I'm dead, I'll pray my best for her in heaven."
"Do you pray a great deal?"
"What can I do better? My working-days are over.
"I know a prayer which brings the souls out of the moon right into heaven, and so that they don't get into purgatory at all. The Holy Mother of God once said to God the Father, 'My dear husband, the way the poor souls squeak and howl down there in purgatory is too bad: I can't stand it any longer.' So he said, 'Well, I don't care: you may go and help them.' So, there was a man in the Tyrol with eight children: and his wife died, and he went on about it dreadfully when they carried her to the churchyard. But the Mother of God came every morning and combed the childrens' heads and washed their faces, and made the beds; and for a long time the man never found out who did it all. At last he went to the parson, and the parson came very early with the sacrament, and saw the Mother of God flying out of the window, as white as snow; and the prayer was lying on the sill; and they built a church on the spot."
"And you know this prayer, ma'am?" said the teacher, taking a seat beside her.
"You mustn't say 'ma'am' to me: it's not the way hereabouts."
"Have you more grandchildren?"
"Five more; and fourteen great-grandchildren,--and I'm going to have another soon by my Constantine. Don't you know my Constantine? He is studied too, but he's a wild one. I have no reason to complain of him, though, for he's always good to me."
Suddenly there appeared, coming from behind the house, a girl, closely followed by a snow-white hen. "Ha' ye gude counsel, grandmammy?" she asked, scarcely looking up as she passed. The teacher was so taken by surprise that he rose involuntarily and touched his cap.
"Is that your grand-daughter?" he asked, at length.
"To-be-sure."
"Why, that is splendid," said the teacher.
Coming from behind the house a girl appeared.
"Isn't she a smart-looking lassie? Old George the blacksmith always tells her, when she goes into the village, that she's just like his grandmother. George the blacksmith is the last of the young fellows I used to dance with: we might as well be three hundred miles apart as the way we are: he's down in the village and can't come up to me, and I can't get down to him. We'll have to wait until we meet each other half-way in the churchyard. I expect to find all the old world there, and in heaven it'll be better yet. My poor Jack Adam has been waiting a long time for me to come after him: he'll be getting tired of it."
"All the people in the village must like you," said the teacher.
"Call into the wood, and you'll have a good answer. When we're young, we want to eat everybody up,--some for love, and some for vexation: when we're old, we live and let live. You wouldn't believe me how good the people are here if I were to tell you: you'll have to find it out yourself. Have you been much about in the world?"
"Not at all. My father was a schoolmaster like myself, and when he died I was only six years old: my mother soon followed him. I was taken to the Orphans' House, and remained there--first as a pupil, and then as an incipient and assistant--until this spring, when I was transferred here. Ah, my good friend, it's a hard lot to have almost forgotten the touch of a mother's hand."
The old woman's hand suddenly passed over his face. He blushed deeply, and sat for a moment with closed lids and quivering eyeballs. Then, as if awaking from a dream, he seized her hand, saying,--
"I may call you grandmother, mayn't I?"
"Yes, and welcome, my kind, good friend: a grandchild more or less won't break me, I'll try it, and will knit your stockings: bring me your torn ones, too, to mend."
The teacher still kept his seat, unable to tear himself away. The passers-by were astonished to find the proud man chatting so cosily with old Maurita. At last a man came out of the house, rubbing himself and stretching his eyes.
"'Had your nap out, Johnnie?" asked the old woman.
"Yes; but my back aches woefully with mowing."
"It'll get well again: our Lord God won't let any man get hurt by working," answered his mother.
The teacher recalled the thoughts suggested by the bowing motion of the mowers. He saluted Johnnie, and walked out into the fields with him. Johnnie liked those conversations which were not attended with drinking, and, therefore, free from expense. He found the teacher, who was an excellent listener, in the highest degree amiable and smart. He favored him with an exposition of his finances, with the story of Constantine, and many other interesting particulars.
In the evening he informed all his friends that the teacher wasn't near so bad as people made him out to be, only he couldn't drive his tongue very well yet: he hadn't got the right way to turn a sharp corner.
The teacher, on coming home, wrote into his pocketbook,--
"Piety alone makes even the decrepitude of age an object of admiration and of reverence. Piety is the childhood of the soul: on the very verge of imbecility it spreads a mild and gentle lustre over the presence and bearing. How hard, tart, and repulsive is the old age of selfish persons! how elevating was the conversation of this old woman in the midst of her superstition!"
He wrote something more than this, but immediately cancelled it. Wrapt in self-accusation, he sat alone for a long time, and then went out into the road: his heart was so full that he could not forego the society of men. The distant song of the young villagers thrilled his breast. "I am to be envied," said he to himself; "for now the song of men is more potent over me than the song of birds. I hear the cry of brothers! Men! I love you all."
Thus he strolled about the village, mentally conversing with every one, though not a word escaped his lips. Without knowing how he had come there, he suddenly found himself once more in front of the house of Johnnie of the Bruck. Every thing was silent, except that from the room the occupation of which was part of the dower of old Maurita issued the monotonous murmur of a prayer.
Late at night he returned home through the village, now still as death, except that here and there the whispers of two lovers might be heard. When he re-entered his solitary room, where there was no one to welcome him, no one to give answer to what he said, to look up to him, and to say, "Rejoice: you live, and I live with you," he prayed aloud to God, "Lord, let me find the heart to which my heart can respond!"
Next day the children were puzzled to know what could have put the teacher in such good humor. During recess he sent Mat's Johnnie to the Eagle to say that they need not send him his dinner, as he was coming there to eat it.
It was unfortunate that, in approaching the life that surrounded him, his thoughts were pitched in such an elevated key. Though he had wit enough to refrain from communicating these flights of imagination to others, he could not avoid seeing and hearing many things which came into the most jarring discord with them.
As he entered the inn, Babbett was in the midst of an animated conversation with another woman. "They brought your old man home nasty, didn't they?" she was saying: "he had the awfullest brick in his hat. Well, if I'd seen them pour brandy into his beer, as they say they did, I'd 'a' sent 'em flying."
"Yes," returned the woman: "he was in a shocking way,--just like a sack of potatoes."
"And they say you thanked them so smartly. What did you say? They were laughing so, I thought they would never get over it."
"Well, I said, says I, 'Thank you, men: God reward you!' Then they asked, 'What for?' So I said, says I, 'Don't you always thank a man when he brings you a sausage?' says I; 'and why shouldn't I thank you,' says I, 'for bringing me a whole hog?' says I."
On hearing this, the teacher laid down his knife and fork: but, soon resuming them, he reflected that, after all, necessity and passion were the only true sources of wit and humor.
Whenever his feelings were outraged in this manner, he now fell back, not upon mother Nature, but upon Grandmother Maurita, who gave him many explanations on the manners and customs of the people. Many people took it into their heads that the old woman had bewitched the schoolmaster. Far from it. Much as he delighted to hold converse with her simple, well-meaning heart, it would have been much more correct to have accused Hedwig of some incantation, although the teacher had only seen her once and had never exchanged a word with her. "Ha' ye gude counsel, grandmammy?" These words he repeated to himself again and again. Though uttered in the harsh mountain dialect, even this seemed to have acquired a grace and loveliness from the lips it passed.
Yet he was far from yielding to this enchantment without summoning to his aid all the force of his former resolves. To fall in love with a peasant-girl! But, as usual, love was fertile in excuses. "She is certainly the image of her grandmother, only fresher and lovelier, and illuminated by the sun of the present time. 'Ha' ye gude counsel, grandmammy?'"
One evening, as he was sitting by the old woman's side, upon the same bench, the girl came home from the field with a sickle in her hand: her cheeks were flushed,--perhaps from exercise: she carried something carefully in her apron. Stepping up to her grandmother, she offered her some blackberries covered with hazel-leaves.
"Don't you know the way to do, Hedwig?" said her grandmother: "you must wait on the stranger first."
"Help yourself, Mr. Teacher," said the girl, looking up without hesitation. The teacher took one, blushing.
"Eat some yourself," said her grandmother.
"No, thank you: just help yourselves: I hope they'll do you good."
"Where did you pick them?" asked her grandmother.
"In the gully by the side of our field: you know where the bush is:" said the girl, and went into the house.
The bush which had formed the subject of the teacher's first sketch was the same from which Hedwig now brought him the ripened fruit.
Hedwig soon returned, still followed by the white hen.
"Where are you going so fast, Miss Hedwig?" asked the teacher: "won't you stop and talk with us a little?"
"No, thank you: I'll go and see the old teacher a little before supper."
"If you have no objection, I'll go with you," said our friend, and did so without waiting for an answer.
"Do you see the old teacher often?"
"Oh, yes: he's a cousin of mine: his wife was my grandmother's sister."
"Was she? Why, I'm delighted to hear it."
"Why? Did you know my grandaunt?"
"No, I was only thinking----"
On entering the old teacher's garden, Hedwig closed the gate hastily behind her: the white hen, thus excluded, posted herself before it like a sentinel.
"What makes that hen run after you so?" asked the teacher. "That's something extraordinary."
Hedwig pulled at her apron in great embarrassment.
"Are you not permitted to tell me?" persisted the teacher.
"Oh, yes, I can, but---- You mustn't laugh at me, and must promise not to tell anybody: they would tease me about it if it was to become known."
He seized her hand and said, quickly, "I promise you most solemnly." It seemed a pity to let the hand go at once, and he retained it, while she went on, looking down,--
"I--I--I hatched the egg in my bosom. The cluck was scared away and left all the eggs; and I held this one egg against the sun, and saw there was a little head in it, and so I took it. You mustn't laugh at me, but when the little chick came out I was so glad I didn't know what to do. I made it a bed of feathers, and chewed bread and fed it; and the very next day it ran about the table. Nobody knows a word of it except my grandmother. The hen is so fond of me now that when I go into the field I must lock it up to keep it from running after me. You won't laugh at me, will you?"
"Sha'n't I have a shake of the hand for good-night?"
"Certainly not," said the teacher. He tried to keep her hand as they walked on, but soon found reason to curse the economy of the old teacher, who had left so little room for the path that it was impossible for two to walk abreast.
His indignation grew still greater when the old teacher came to meet them with a louder laugh than usual, and cried, "Do you know each other already? Ah, Hedwig, didn't I always tell you that you must marry a schoolmaster?"
With a great effort he restrained himself from giving vent to the mortification caused by this rude dallying with the first budding of so delicate a flower. To his astonishment, Hedwig began, as if nothing had been said:--"Cousin, you must cut your summer-barley in the mallet-fields to-morrow: it's dead ripe, and will fall down if you don't take care."
But little was spoken. Hedwig appeared to be fatigued, and seated herself on a bench under a tree. The men conversed, our friend regarding Hedwig all the while with such intensity that she passed her apron several times across her face, fearing that she had blackened it in the kitchen while putting the potatoes over the fire. But our friend's attention was directed to very different matters. He perceived for the first time a slight cast in Hedwig's left eye: the effect was by no means unpleasant, but gave the face an interesting air of shyness which suited very well the style of the features. A fine nose of regular form, a very small mouth with cherry lips, round, delicately-glowing cheeks,--all were enough to arrest the delighted gaze of a young man of twenty-five. At last, after having given a number of wry answers, he became aware that it was time to go. He took leave, and Hedwig said, "Good-night, Mr. Teacher."
"Sha'n't I have a shake of the hand for good-night?"
Hedwig quickly put both her hands behind her back.
"In our parts we shake hands without asking: ha, ha!" said the old teacher.
At this hint our friend whisked round the tree to catch Hedwig's hand; but she drew them quickly before her. Not having the courage to pass his arms round her, he ran forward and backward around the tree, until he stumbled and fell down at Hedwig's feet. His head fell into her lap and on her hand, and he hastily pressed a warm kiss upon it and called her his in spirit. Finding him in no haste to get up, Hedwig raised his head, her hands covering his cheeks, and said, looking around in great confusion, "Get up: you haven't hurt yourself, I hope? See: this comes of such tricks: you mustn't learn them from my cousin here."
As he rose, Hedwig bent down to brush his knees with her apron; but this the teacher would not permit: his heart beat quickly at the sight of this humble modesty. He said "Goodnight" again; and Hedwig looked down, but no longer refused her hand.
He walked homeward without feeling the ground beneath his feet: a feeling of inexpressible power coursed through his veins, and he smiled so triumphantly on all he met that they stared and stood still to look after him.
But the mind of man is changeful; and when the teacher had reached his home he lapsed into cruel self-accusation. "I have suffered myself to be carried away by a sudden passion," he said. "Is this my firmness? I have committed myself,--thrown myself away upon a peasant-girl. No, no the majesty of a noble soul breathes from those lineaments."
Various other thoughts occurred to him. He knew something of the life of the villagers now; and, late in the evening, he wrote into his pocket-hook, "The silver cross upon her bosom is to me a symbol of sanctity and purity."
At home Hedwig had not eaten a morsel of supper, and her people scolded her for having overworked herself,--probably by having assisted the old teacher in the garden before supper. She protested the contrary, but made haste to join her grandmother, in whose room she slept.
Long after prayers, hearing her grandmother cough, and seeing that she was still awake, she said, "Grandmother, what does it mean to kiss one's hand?"
"Why, that one likes the hand."
"Nothing else?"
"No."
After some time, Hedwig again said, "Grandmother."
"What is it?"
"I wanted to ask you something; but I forgot what it was."
"Well, then, go to sleep, because you're tired: if it was something good, to-morrow will be time enough: you'll think of it again."
But Hedwig tossed about without sleeping. She persuaded herself that she could not sleep because she had lost her appetite; so she forced herself to eat a piece of bread with which she had provided herself.
Meantime the teacher had also made up his mind. At first he thought of probing himself and his affection, and of not seeing Hedwig for some time; but the more rational alternative prevailed, and he determined to see her often and study her mind and character as closely as possible.
Next day he called upon his old colleague and invited him out for a walk: he saw that, if only on Hedwig's account, he must cultivate this acquaintance. The old man never walked out, as his gardening afforded him all the exercise he needed; but our friend's invitation appeared to him an honor not to be refused.
It was long before a subject of conversation could be presented to the old man's mind which did not hang fire. His interest in every thing invariably went out as soon as his pipe,--for which he struck fire every five minutes. The young man did not wish to begin with Hedwig, but rather to study a little of the niece's character by the uncle's.
"Do you read much now?" he inquired.
"Nothing at all, scarcely. What would I make by it if I did? I've got my pension."
"Yes," replied the young man; "but we don't improve our minds only to make our money with, but to attain a more elevated mental existence,--to study deeper and understand more clearly. Every thing on earth--and intellectual life above all things--must first be its own purpose----"
The old gentleman stopped to light his pipe with great composure, and our friend paused in the midst of an exposition which had but recently presented itself to his own mind. They walked side by side without speaking for a time, until the younger began again:--"But you still practise your music, don't you?"
"I should think so. I sometimes fiddle for half a night at a time. I need no light, I don't damage my eyes, and I don't miss anybody's conversation."
"And you try to perfect yourself in it as far as you can?"
"Why not? Of course."
"And yet you don't make any thing by it."
The old man looked at him in astonishment. Our friend went on:--"Just as your perfection in music gives you pleasure without making you richer, so, methinks, it ought to be the case with reading and study. But in this respect many people are just like those who neglect their dress and personal appearance the moment they have no special interest in attracting some particular person. The other day I heard a young fellow scold a young married woman for her slatternly attire. 'Oh,' said she, 'where's the difference now? I'm bought and sold, and my old man must have me for better or for worse.' As if there was merely an external object in dressing ourselves neatly and it was not required for our own sakes, to preserve our self-respect. This is just the view many people take of education: they carry it on to subserve an external purpose, and the moment this incentive fails they neglect it.
"But, if we have a proper respect for our intellectual selves, we should keep them clean and neat, as we do our persons, and seek to bring out all their faculties to the greatest perfection attainable."
The young man suddenly perceived that he had been soliloquizing aloud, instead of keeping up the conversation; but the indifference exhibited by his companion dispelled every fear of having given him offence. With a sigh it occurred to him, for the hundredth time, how wearisome is the effort to give currency to any thoughts of a more general and elevated nature. "If the old teacher is so thick-skinned, what is to be expected of the farmers?" thought he.
After another pause, our friend began once more:--"Don't you think people are much more good and pious nowadays, than they were in the old times?"
"Pious? Devil take it! we weren't so bad in the old times either, only we didn't make such a fuss about it: too little and too much is lame without a crutch: ha, ha!"
Another long silence ensued, at the end of which the young man made a lucky move in asking, "How was it about music in old times?"
A light glistened in the old man's eyes: he held the steel and the tinder in his hand unused, and said, "It's all tooting nowadays. I was sub-organist in the Freiburg Cathedral for two years and a half. That's an organ, let me tell you. I heard the Abbé Vogler: there can't be any thing finer in heaven than his music was.
"I've played at many a harvest-home, too.
"In old times they had stringed instruments principally, and harps and cymbals. Now it's all wind,--big trumpets, little trumpets, and valve-trumpets, all blowing and noise. And what can a musician make at a harvest-home? Three men used to be plenty: now they want six or seven. It used to be small room, small bass, and big pay: now it's big room, double-bass, and half-pay.
"I once travelled through the Schaibach Valley with two comrades; and the thalers seemed to fly into our pockets as if they had wings. Once two villages almost exterminated each other because both wanted me to play at harvest-home the same day."
The old gentleman now passed on to one of his favorite stories of how a village had been so enchanted with his performance on the violin that they had made him their schoolmaster: the Government undertook to install another with dragoons, but the village rebelled and he kept his office.
"Didn't it injure your standing as a teacher to play at the harvest-homes?"
"Not a bit. I've done it more than fifty times in this village, and you won't see a man in it but takes off his cap when he meets me in the street."
The old man's eloquence continued to flow until they had returned to the garden. Our friend waited a long time, in the hope of seeing Hedwig, but in vain. Thus his first design was accomplished in spite of himself: he did not see Hedwig for a long, long time,--to wit, for full forty-eight hours.
Next day, as he strode alone through the fields, he saw Buchmaier driving a horse, which drew a sort of roller.
"Busy, squire?" asked the teacher: he had learned some of the customary phrases by this time.
"A little," answered Buchmaier, and drove his horse to the end of the field, where he halted.
He drove his horse to the end of the field, where he halted.
"Is that the sorrel you were breaking in the day I came here?"
"Yes, that's him. I'm glad to see that you remember it: I thought you had nothing in your head but your books.
"You see, I've had a queer time with this here horse. My ploughman wanted to break him into double harness right-away, and I gave in to him; but it wouldn't do, nohow. These colts, the first time they get harness on 'em, work themselves to death, and pull, and pull, and don't do any good after all: if they pull hard and get their side of the swingle-tree forward, the other horse don't know what to make of it and just lumbers along anyhow. But if you have 'em in single harness you can make 'em steady and not worry themselves to death for nothing. When they can work each by himself, they soon learn to work in a team, and you can tell much better how strong you want the other horse to be."
The teacher derived a number of morals from this speech; but all he said aloud was, "It's just the same thing with men: they must learn to work alone first, and then they are able to help each other."
"That's what I never thought of; but I guess you're right."
"Is that the new sowing-machine? What are you sowing?"
"Rapeseed."
"Do you find the machine better than the old way of sowing?"
"Yes, it's more even; but it won't do for any but large fields. Small patches are better sown with the hand."
"I must confess, I find something particularly attractive in the act of sowing with the hand: it is significant that the seed should first rest immediately in the hand of man and then fly through the air to sink into the earth. Don't you think so too?"
"Maybe so; but it just comes to my mind that you can't say the sower's rhyme very well with the machine. Well, you must think it."
"What rhyme?"
"Farmers' boys used to be taught to say, whenever they threw out a handful of seed,--