THE LETTER CARRIERPermission Franz HanfstaenglKarl Spitzweg
THE LETTER CARRIERPermission Franz HanfstaenglKarl Spitzweg
[Three days after the first shock a second apoplectic attack occurred and Samuel Freudenstein died. On the way home from the cemetery Hans sought to comfort his friend—quite unnecessarily, as all that occupied the latter's mind was what his father had left. With the help of two guardians he was able, within a few days to find out exactly what this amounted to, and finally, after thoroughly rummaging through the shop, he sold it again to another Semite. He sought to banish all remembrance of his father; the hour-glass slipped from his hand and a kick sent the fragments into a corner.
In the meantime his mother, "Auntie," and Uncle Grünebaum had done their best to prepare Hans for his journey to the university. Hans bade farewell to everybody and everything in Neustadt that he loved and then, on a beautiful spring morning, started on his pilgrimage with Moses. As they passed the door of the second-hand shop, they found three old Jewish women there to whom Samuel had been charitable now and then, and the housekeeper, Esther. They were waiting to give Moses their blessings and good wishes, but he scorned them. They left the thaler that he threw to them lying on the ground and half the prayer that they sent after him was changed into a curse. Uncle Grünebaum, with his dignified person and his beautiful speeches, accompanied the two young people as far as the town gates.
On a height that afforded a last view of Neustadt the two wanderers paused for a short time. Hans thought of all that he had experienced up till then and of all the people that he had known, not excepting the dead, such as his master, Silberlöffel, and little Sophie. Moses, on the other hand, refused to think of those who had died and thought of the living only with his superior, cynical smile. He hated the town of Neustadt and finally roused Hans from his dreams by a mocking remark. Similar scenes oftenrecurred on their way, the last one when, on the morning of the third day, they came in sight of the university town lying at their feet. Hans would like to have taken off his shoes on the holy ground while Moses gave characteristic expression to his opinion by remarking that there must be many a bad egg or a blown one down there in the little town.
Hans rented a little room from a shoemaker in the most remote and cheapest corner of the town of the muses, while Moses established himself in a house that looked on a beautiful public square opposite the Gothic cathedral. His rooms were elegantly furnished and he showed no disinclination for any of the exquisite enjoyments of life; the humble cocoon from Neustadt brought forth a gay-colored, bright, Epicurean butterfly that spread its wings with assurance and skill.
Hans entered himself as a student of theology while Moses joined the philosophers. Hans entertained a humble veneration for the apostles of wisdom and on every occasion Moses diabolically sought to trip up this touching belief in authority. He acknowledged one professor's good points only so as to be able to throw a stronger light on his weaknesses; in the case of another he was pleased to find that at least his moral reputation was not above reproach. But although Moses was able to destroy much he was also able to give as much else. He got himself books on all branches of learning and constructed for himself a rather original system of objective logic; he diligently attended lectures on law and for recreation he gave Hans instruction in Hebrew. With subtle arguments he discussed with him God and the world, physics and metaphysics, and proved to him that the Jews were still the chosen people, for the successes that the other nations won they won for the Jews too, whereas the latter were not concerned in other people's defeats. Whenever the Jews did enter the struggle they did so of their own free will, with no anxietyfor the weal or woe of a nation, but only to fight for spiritual values, for ideas.
Hans could meet such sophistry only with the greatest difficulty; his talent did not lie in that direction. Even his first semester showed him that he was better fitted for practical than theoretical theology; in fact, the professor of homiletics was not satisfied with his achievements even in that subject. His pupil's oratory contained too much "poesie," too much enthusiasm for nature, even an odor of pantheism. Hence Hans liked best to preach his sermons in the open air, under a tall oak, on a narrow meadow in the woods where the birds listened to him with more tolerance than did his professor.
Hans always went home in the holidays and each time he entered with a clearer head and a larger heart into the small circle of his dear ones. Moses, however, remained in the university town and each time, when lectures began again, he came out of his rooms more sarcastic and sceptical than before. Finally the last semester drew near. Hans was to take his examination at home as a candidate in theological science. Moses wrote a capital doctor's dissertation on "Matter as an Element of the Divine," and defended his views by gradually turning the thesis round and making of the Divine an element of matter. Quite carelessly one evening after he had taken his degree Moses told Hans that he was going to Paris the day after tomorrow, as he wanted to learn to swim there. He went on to say that Germany was nothing but a beach from which the tide had receded but he had not yet lost his feeling for the open sea and wanted to find more extensive waters in which to try his fins. To Hans' great astonishment and regret Moses really did go to Paris and left the friend of his youth alone behind him. A great void was made in Hans' life, but before the end of the semester he received a letter which showed him that even greater voids might appear in his life. This letter came from Uncle Grünebaum and announced that his mother was very ill.As soon as he had recovered from his first stupefaction Hans packed his certificates and few belongings and left the university to go to Neustadt, to the deathbed of his mother.]
It was a melancholy way through the autumn weather. Throughout the journey the wind was the poor wanderer's companion, the cold, dreary, whining, groaning October wind. Mockingly it tore from the woods a good part of the adornment with which it had often dallied so winningly in spring and summer. It whipped up dense clouds of dust on the road and rushed across the stubble fields with a shrieking hiss which could not have been pleasant to any living creature except the crows. Only the thrashing of the flails in the neighboring and distant villages could be taken as a comforting sign that everything was not yet lost to the earth and that the triumph that the wind was celebrating on the empty fields was only a deceptive one.
But this comfort was lost on the lonely wanderer in the clouds of dust on the country road; he could pay little attention to it and, deeply depressed and forlorn, he dragged one foot after the other. He had traveled this way so often already that no object that sprang into view on either side of the road was unfamiliar to him. Trees and boulders, houses and huts, sign-posts, church steeples, old boundary stones which no longer marked anything but the transitoriness of even the widest possessions—all had already made various impressions on him in his various moods. He remembered how he had sat thinking on this spot, had slept through an afternoon under the bushes on that one. He thought most of those days when he had passed this way for the first time with his great hunger for knowledge, in the companionship of that comrade of his youth who was now gone. Now he was going back along this way for the last time;—he had learnt much, endured many things andenjoyed many pleasures! What was now the state of his soul?
He was depressed, he was sad and would have been so even without Uncle Grünebaum's letter of ill tidings. With all his strength he had striven to learn all that could be learnt of the high branch of knowledge to which he had devoted himself, and he was obliged to confess that this was little enough. He felt deeply the inadequacy of what the men on the lecture platform had taught him, but he felt something else besides and that was what Professor Vogelsang and most of the other members of the highly laudable, honorable faculty did not want to recognize because they could not teach it.
He was on his way to see one die whom he loved more than any other human being; he stepped out toward darkness and it was darkness that he left behind him. At one time he had preached to the trees and the birds because the world would hear nothing of his feelings, and he had never complained of that. Now, his hunger for knowledge seemed to be dead, but his feelings were still alive, rose insistently and crowded about his heart; they grew to be the bitterest pain that a man can endure. At that moment nothing was distinct in the surging tumult; sorrow about his mother, disappointment, worry and fear were mingled; and, curiously enough, mixed with all these there sounded sharply and cuttingly long forgotten words which Moses Freudenstein had once uttered. During this journey Hans Jakob Unwirrsch was in a similar mood to that of another John James who, long years before, had gone from Annecy to Vevay and had written of that road:
"Combien de fois, m'arrêtant pour pleurer à mon aise, assis sur une grosse pierre, je me suis amusé à voir tomber mes larmes dans l'eau!"
It blew incessantly! All day long the wind drove dark clouds across the gray sky, yet not a drop of rain fell. It burrowed into the hedges about the neglected, untidy gardens where the withered sunflowers and hollyhocks hungtheir heads plaintively. It rattled the windows of the village inn where Hans ate his dinner, blustered about the house and waited grimly for the wanderer who had escaped it for a short moment. It played its game about the coach that stopped at the toll-gate and flapped the cape of the driver's coat so violently round his ears that he could scarcely get out the toll. Hans threw an indifferent glance at this carriage through the window; but the next moment he regarded it more keenly. The leather flap at the side of the carriage had been drawn back, a young girl looked out and peered down the dreary country road. The wind raised the black veil on her black mourning hat and had no more pity on the pale, sad, girlish face beneath it than on anything else that came in its way. But for that reason the little face only made the greater impression on Hans. Trouble greeted trouble, and the sorrow that went on foot along the country road bowed to the sorrow in the carriage that rolled through the clouds of dust. That childish, careworn face just fitted into the mood that possessed Hans; he would have liked to know more of its owner's life and fate.
But the girl's head drew back and in its place there appeared a gray moustache and an old military cap. A glass of brandy was handed into the carriage, full, and very quickly appeared again, empty; the driver too had found it possible, in spite of his violent struggle with his cape, to refresh himself with a drink that did not come directly from the spring. Get up! Forward! The horses started and, with a cloud of dust the old vehicle rattled off, the wind rushing after it like a bloodhound on the trail and it was more than remarkable that when Hans came out of the Golden Stag Inn it received him too with triumphant animosity and blew him after the carriage.
The people in the Golden Stag had not been able to say who the military old gentleman and the young lady in mourning were; they only knew the driver, the two lean nags and the tumble-down old vehicle, and said that thisquartet was often hired by travelers as it was frequently the only means of transport in the neighborhood.
In addition to all his other thoughts Hans now carried with him on his way through the dark afternoon the image of the lovely little face he had seen. Ever anew it presented itself to his mental vision; he could not help it. Thus he went on and did not stop till the dusk had grown denser and he had reached the little town in which he was to spend the night.
To be sure, it had been dusk all day and the evening could make little change in the illumination of the world. But now night fell and made common cause with the wind and if the devil had joined the alliance he could not have made matters much worse.
It was not the wind's fault that the crooked old houses of the little country town which Hans now entered were still standing the next morning. The lights in the rooms, behind the windows, seemed to flicker and the few people who were still in the streets fought their way laboriously against the storm, bending forward or leaning back. Front doors slammed with thundering crashes, window shutters flew open with a rattle and the only glazier in the place listened with singular joy to every shrill clinking and clatter in the distance.
If, however, the wind was obliged to leave the little town as a whole still standing it could do even less to the keeper of the Post-horn Inn. To have blown him from his feet and thrown him to the earth would indeed have been a feat which Aeolus might well have set his subjects and rewarded with a prize. On his short, well-rounded legs the innkeeper stood firm and unmoved in front of his doorway under his creaking sign and gave orders regarding a carriage which was just being drawn under shelter by two servants. The lean theologian, Hans Unwirrsch, landed, in the most literal sense of the word, on the colossal mountain of flesh, the keeper of the Post-horn Inn; half smothered and half blinded Hans was blown into the doorwayand hurled violently against the innkeeper's stomach, but even this collision did not disturb the balance of his huge bulk.
The keeper of the Post-horn Inn was fortunately a man who knew how to appreciate the compelling power of circumstances; the attack did not make him as rude as might have been expected. He did not invite the guest thus hurled against him to go to the devil, he even wheeled halfway round to afford him an entrance into his house and followed him merely snorting a few mild remarks.
"A confounded way to steer! Always go slow over the bridge! Don't turn too sharp a corner! Thunder, right on my full stomach!"
But when, in the dimly lit room, he recognized the stranger that the ill wind had blown into his house, the last shade of bad humor disappeared from his round face and with perfect cheerfulness he held out his broad paw to shake hands.
"Ah, it's you, my young student friend! Back once more in the holidays? I'm glad of that! As they say, it's an ill wind that blows nobody good."
Hans apologized as well as he could for his tumultuous greeting at the door; but now the innkeeper only looked at him smilingly and pityingly and blew across his hand as if he would say: "A feather! A feather! Nothing but a feather!"—But what he did say was: "That's all right, Mr. Unwirrsch, I'm well able to stand my ground. Take off your knapsack;—I suppose you've carried it on your back all day long as usual? It's a shame!"
There was the landlady, just as corpulent as the master of the house! There was "my hostess' daughter fair" but not "in a coffin black and bare" this time, thank God! nay, very much alive and also of pleasant amplitude. And they greeted poor, sad Hans whose good heart and tiny purse they had learnt to know in former vacations and treated with the respect due them. They questioned him about everything before he could get his breath and knewthe sorrowful circumstance that now called him home before he had laid down his knapsack and heavy stick. And as they considered a good meal and a good draught the best panacea for all ills he, the landlord, went down into the cellar and the landlady with her daughter went into the kitchen and Hans was now able to take a first glance at the other guests.
There were only two there. There was a table laid for supper in the corner by the stove and they were sitting at it; an old gentleman with a moustache, in a long military coat buttoned up under his chin, and a pale, delicate looking young girl in mourning. The girl was looking down and continued to do so but the old gentleman stared at the theologian so steadily and openly that the latter felt quite uncomfortable and was very glad when the fat landlord reappeared in the room and interposed his solid form between the keen-eyed, moustached countenance and the table at which Hans had seated himself.
The landlord had a robust voice and did not put his questions as softly as Hans would have wished; the landlord was somewhat deaf and required Hans to answer as loudly as possible. And when "my hostess" came with dishes and plates and "my hostess's daughter fair" with knives and forks, they too had questions to ask. The old soldier did not need to play eavesdropper to hear everything worth knowing about the black-coat.
If a man who has had much trouble to bear has not heard any friendly, sympathetic voices about him for a long time, he becomes communicative when finally such voices do reach his ears and his heart with questions and expressions of pity, however reticent he may be as a rule. And, as we know, Hans Unwirrsch was not reticent; he did not keep his joys and sorrows out of sight and, as he had nothing to conceal, he unreservedly gave the good-natured family a full account of how he and the world had got along with one another.
The military looking old gentleman soon knew everything that might be of interest in such a hungry-looking, black-gowned, young theological student. He knew his name, he knew that he came from the famous town of Neustadt, he had heard that a certain Uncle Grünebaum was still in good health and that a no less certain Auntie Schlotterbeck still saw the dead wandering about in the streets. That the theologian had an old mother in Neustadt and that this mother was ill with a serious, painful disease and would perhaps have to die—all this the old gentleman with the gray moustache heard, and the young girl heard it too, moreover with sympathy, as it seemed, for she had raised her head and turned it towards where the young man was sitting. Her face was kind, but not beautiful; it was her eyes that were beautiful, with which, however, she could not see the theologian but only the broad back of the landlord of the Post-horn Inn. The landlord blocked her view as well as that of the young man whom he was questioning so eagerly.
How angry the wind was outside, and how unmistakably it showed its fury! It blustered round the house as if mad and shook every window at which its ally, the night, the dreary autumn night, the enemy of man, the enemy of light, looked in. Oh, how angry the wind and the night were with the travelers who were now so safe from them; how angry with the fat landlord of the Post-horn Inn and with the landlady and the landlady's rosy daughter! No pursuer whose victims had escaped into some inviolable sanctuary could be more angry.
But who was it who at this moment emphatically snapped out the words: "That impudent Jew!"....
Was it the wind or was it the night?
No, it was the elderly military gentleman with the moustache and if there had been any doubt that by this kindly designation he meant our friend Moses Freudenstein, whose name Hans Unwirrsch had just mentioned, he dissipated such doubt immediately by adding:
"A conceited, impudent Jewish brat, if it's the rogue towhom, lately, in Paris, I had to give a piece of my mind! Wasn't it so, Fränzchen? Moses Freudenstein, yes, that was the name. Won't you move nearer, sir; come over here to this table; it's an evening for people to gather close together and I shall be glad to make your nearer acquaintance and to hear something further about this Moses."
The landlord and his family, wondering much at this sudden interruption, had turned to the speaker, and Hans, much excited by this unsuspected attack on his friend, had risen.
With no trace of timidity he began Moses Freudenstein's defense from where he sat; but the old gentleman waved his hand soothingly.
"Come, come; always keep step! Right, left! Right—now the wind has the floor again. Just listen to its blustering outside! This is the sort of weather that takes away even a pastor's appetite for a dispute. Come over here, candidate, and have a glass of punch; and don't take it amiss if I've done it again and said something unsuitable;—I suppose I have, for here's my niece pulling my coat-tail."
Perhaps at that moment it would have been quite agreeable to the young lady if the landlord had still stood between her and the theological student; but the view was now perfectly open and nothing prevented our Hans from thanking with a glance the blushing child who had pulled the coat of the owner of the gray military moustache.
"Forward, candidate, forward! Carry arms,—march—halt! Move up, Franziska;—you're surely not afraid of a young black-coat. Landlord, what would you think of calling out a second levy of this pleasant and wholesome beverage?"
The landlord thought that the beverage was just suited to the weather and the hour and lost no time in filling the order. Before Hans Unwirrsch really knew how it hadhappened he was sitting beside the old soldier, opposite the pale young lady and in front of a steaming glass.
"That's right, young man," said the owner of the moustache. "I knew that you wouldn't fall out with a pensioned old soldier on account of just a word or two. Your health, sir; and now as I have by this time learnt your name, circumstances and so on, you shall not feel your way in the dark as regards us, either. I am a retired lieutenant, Rudolf Götz, and this child is my niece, Franziska Götz, whose father has lately died in Paris and whom I have fetched from there, to turn her over to my third brother who is a juristic big-wig—poor little thing!"
The lieutenant growled the last words very softly and immediately added, very loudly.
"And now then, as we each know who the other is, I hope that the evening will pass without any row in the quarters. Here's to you, sir, you've made a good march today and a good drink ought to follow it."
Hans drank to the lieutenant in return and soon found that the voice and the moustache bore no relation to the eyes, the good-natured nose and the joyous mouth. He found that there was no reason to fear that theology had here fallen into the power and under the tyranny of a bragging swashbuckler. And, indeed, he thought, that it would require great inward perversity to be outwardly rough in the presence of the girl Franziska.
It was a pleasant picture to see the old soldier sitting between the two sorrowful young people. He was certainly very much inclined to be quite jolly; but as that was hardly the thing he did his best to play the part of the comforter.
"So it goes in the world," he said over the edge of his glass, "people drive or trot past each other on the road and never think of each other and then, a few hours later, all at once they are sitting comfortably together and stretching out their legs under the same table. And so it goes with us too; you're just standing in a solid square and have your men on either side, your best friends andcan depend on them. You watch calmly how the two twelve-pounders over there are planted and the game begins. Phwt, phwt—the balls make bad paths through the battalion; but they don't touch you, nor the men beside you either. Over there, they're thinking, now their time has come—there is the cavalry—trot—gallop—you see them coming on with a stamping and roaring, like a thunder storm,—Fire! There is a cracking about your ears and your mind is so confused that you couldn't even say "Bless you" if the devil should sneeze. But you stand fast, however black it may grow before your eyes—now the real jamming sets in, and you stumble over all sorts of things that squirm or lie still. There's squealing and howling and groaning between your feet; but it's all one, you stand as fast as possible, even if you can't help it. The dogs must be driven back, and they are. Through the smoke you see nothing but the tails of the horses and everyone trying to get back where he came from and the wind blows the smoke after them—but, the devil, where are the men beside you? There are strange faces all round and it's a strange hand that holds out the bottle to you; there, comrade, drink after that piece of work! The battalion goes forward three paces to get the dead and wounded out of the ranks. All around the fellows are steaming with sweat and here and there one of them has blood trickling out of his nose or somewhere. The ground is slippery and ploughed-up enough and there's a most infernal smell in the air; but your good friends are gone and you mustn't even turn round to look after them for the scoundrels over there at the edge of the woods aren't done yet by a long shot; they'll come again often enough before the sun sets so as to earn their supper and stamp the name of Waterloo on the history of the world. And now here is my niece Franziska; she too has lost the man next her from her sight, and here is the pastor with a face like the black tom-cat that fell into the pot of vinegar, and here am I—also a poor orphan. I can tell you, young people, when a manhas had it rain a few times into his camp kettle, he learns to put on the lid and when a man has lost more than one good comrade from his side he learns to say goodby. The softest hearts have learnt just to swallow dry three times in their misery and still they have remained the best and most faithful souls. Hold up your head, Fränzel; do it for your old uncle's sake; hold up your head, Hans Unwirrsch! If such young people as you rub their noses in the dust what are we old fellows to do?"
Franziska pressed the hard, hairy hand that the soldier held out to her tenderly to her breast; she looked at him and although tears glittered in her eyes she smiled and said:
"Oh, my dear, good Uncle; I will do everything that you want me to. I know that it is wrong of me to show such sadness in return for your love; you must be indulgent with me,—you have spoilt me very much with your love."
The old man took up the weak little hand which he held in his broad paw and looked at it attentively.
"Poor child, poor child," he murmured. "As forsaken and blown about as a little bird that has fallen out of the nest:—and Theodor and his wife—and Kleophea—Oh, it's a shame! Poor little bird, poor little bird,—and I, old vagabond that I am, haven't even the most wretched corner to give it shelter."
He shook his head for a long time, growling and sighing; then he brought his hand down on the table:
"Let's be merry, Pastor. So you know that Moses Freudenstein who now, with eight hundred thousand other loafers, infests the Paris streets? That's a fine acquaintance and really suits you about as well as a howitzer suits dried peas."
"I should be very sorry if Moses, if it is really he, should really deserve your displeasure so much, Mr. Götz," answered Hans. "We grew up together, we were friends at school and at the university; and moreover he can scarcelyhave been six months in Paris. I hope it is a mistake; I hope so with all my heart!"
The lieutenant now asked Hans to describe the personality of poor, good Moses exactly, and at every detail that Hans mentioned he was unfortunately obliged to nod and look interrogatively at his niece.
"It's he. It's as sure as a gun. That's the rascal, isn't it, Fränzchen? I'll tell you the tale in a few words, to put an end to the matter. As my brother's death took place very suddenly my niece was left all alone for some time in that nest of Satan and I know what that means because I was there on a visit in 1814 and '15, but there were a good many others with me. Poor child, poor child! I know what it means to be left all alone in that turmoil—She's pulling my coat again, Pastor! Now please leave me alone, Fränzel; let me tell him."
"I'd rather you didn't, Uncle," whispered the young girl, "and you looked at the matter in a worse light than it was; that gentleman——"
"Was a scoundrel who had to be ground into a pulp;—no, don't pull me, Fränzel."
Franziska threw a beseeching glance at Hans Unwirrsch and he had seldom felt so uncomfortable on any seat, besides he did not now learn after all in what relation his friend had stood to the young lady and the old soldier. Although the uncertainty troubled him much and the doubt of his friend that had been aroused in him pierced his heart, he would not have increased the pale girl's grief by eager, prying questions, for anything in the world. Only one thing was clear to him: chance must have led the winsome Moses into the house in which Franziska had lived after her father's death, helpless, lonely and unprotected, and that his behavior could not have been of the most chivalrous kind. On one of the boulevards a violent scene had then taken place between Mr. Götz and Mr. Freudenstein, and the former had certainly brought home with him to theGerman fatherland a deeply rooted antipathy to poor Moses.
Before the windows of the "Post-horn" another horn now sounded discordantly. The night-watchman called the tenth hour and the little party separated. The lieutenant took leave of the theologian in cordial fashion and admonished him once more to keep his head above water and to break his neck, if it must be, only in the best of health. Franziska Götz too, at his command, had to shake hands with the young man in parting and did so quite naturally and without embarrassment. The lieutenant and his niece had to leave early the next morning to reach the railway which now ran to the capital in the north. Hans Unwirrsch was able to sleep longer; no line of railway went as yet to Neustadt and, indeed, the town felt no need at all of being made accessible to the rest of the world in such a way. Hence if Hans resolved to bid the two travelers Godspeed once more at the carriage door in the morning, it certainly showed his good intentions and if he overslept, that was the fault of fate, which prevented his good intentions from being carried out.
He really did oversleep after having tossed about sleeplessly half the night. His long tramp and the wind, which rushed over the roof and whistled round the corners, Uncle Grünebaum's letter and Lieutenant Rudolf Götz's strong punch, Mr. Moses Freudenstein in Paris and pale, sad Franziska would not let him sleep. He got up and lit the light, only to blow it out again; he could not get his ideas into any sort of order and if usually his imagination came to his aid when he was in a depressed mood to comfort him with all kinds of bright and lovely pictures of the past or to hold up before him the magic mirror of the future with smiles and teasing beckonings, it now only drove ghostly shadows round his head and concealed in the most threatening manner both what lay near and what lay distant.
In all his life Hans Unwirrsch had never felt so lacking in courage as in that night;—until then he had been too happy.Now, for the first time dark, merciless hands reached into his life from all directions; the narrow, secure circle which a kind fate had drawn about his youth had now been broken through; he was being dragged out into the great struggle of the world, of which the young girl who was spending the night at the Post-horn under the same roof as he, knew so much more than he did.
Vae victis!
They were gone; but he knew neither who they were nor what they were to become to him. There, near the stove, stood the table at which they had sat, and the landlady put the coffee on it and pushed up a chair for Hans Unwirrsch. The landlord came back from his morning tour through the yard and garden and brought him a last greeting from the two travelers. They were gone.
Before Hans drank his coffee he looked once more through the window out upon the street. No sign of them there any more.
"That was a gallant old gentleman," said the landlord, and the landlady said: "Poor young lady! I should really like to know what is the matter with her; my Mary, who slept in the room next hers, heard her crying all night long. She must have known much sorrow in her young life."
Hans came back from the window, sat down on the chair on which he had sat the evening before and looked at the two empty chairs. He began to go over in his mind every word that had been spoken the day before.
"And he doesn't write to me—I don't know his address—I can't ask him what he did to hurt the young lady. It's like a dream. Oh Moses, Moses!"
They were gone, and the wind too had subsided. The sky was almost grayer than the day before but there was not a breath of air stirring now.
"It was a strange meeting after all! If I had only seen the lieutenant once more.... And the burden on my shoulders is so heavy without this! Oh, what wouldn't I give if I only knew Moses' address!"
The innkeeper, feeling obliged to cheer his guest up, told him all the remarkable, funny and sad occurrences of the little place, but Hans could only listen with half an ear;—they were gone, and finally he too could no longer endure the heavy atmosphere of the inn parlor. He felt that he must also get away, must breathe some fresh air. So he paid his bill and went, accompanied by the best wishes and blessings of the Post-horn. He strode through the sleepy place without looking to the right or to the left; not until he was out on the country road again did he look up and about him and almost wished for the wind of yesterday. Then there had at least been life, even though it had been weird; but today every bare furrow cried: the great Pan is dead!—and full of mourning the clouds hung low over the lifeless earth. It was fortunate for the wanderer that the way behind the next village led into an extensive forest of fir-trees. Even though it was still darker there than between the open fields, yet the fresh smell of the balsam strengthened him in mind and soul. In this wood Hans Unwirrsch at least left behind him his disquieting thoughts of the friend of his youth, for when he once more stepped forward out of the dusk of the forest the hills behind which his native town lay rose against the horizon and from now on everything had to recede before the vision of his sick mother, even the image of the lovely young lady who had sat opposite him the evening before.
Hans Unwirrsch wandered on without stopping; he would not allow himself another rest. An irresistible power within him drove him forward; by two o'clock in the afternoon he stood at the edge of the wood from which one can see Neustadt lying at one's feet.
"Oh Mother, Mother!" sighed Hans stretching out his hands toward the town. "I am coming, I am coming. Iwent forth with great hope and I am coming home in great pain and with many doubts. Oh dear, dear Mother, will you too forsake your child? You couldn't do that. Oh, why did I not stay down there, why did I let myself be lured away over this mountain and forest by a mistaken, false yearning! What am I bringing home that for you and me could take the place of that lost peace and happiness in which my father passed his days?"
And now the terrible thought came to him that his mother might be dying while he delayed there and he ran down the hill till he was out of breath and, while walking at a more moderate pace, he collected himself again.
Now he walked through the old gate and now through the streets of the town. From more than one window people looked after him, more than one acquaintance met and greeted him; but he could pay no attention to anyone. He was in Kröppel Street; he stood before the paternal house; he knelt beside his mother's bed and did not know whether a moment, a minute or a century had passed since that second when he stood at the edge of the woods. Nor could he give any account of what was said in the first few moments of his homecoming. Perhaps nothing was said at all.
Now he read his mother's frightful sufferings in her face and worn features, and wept bitterly. Then he whispered to her that he was there, that he would never go away again, and that she must not leave him either. And then, in a faint voice, the sick woman tried to soothe him and he felt a hand on his shoulder and finally raised himself up.
Auntie Schlotterbeck stood behind him; she had not changed at all and gently she reminded him that he must control himself and must not excite his mother too much.
There was Uncle Grünebaum too, very gentle and reticent; Uncle Grünebaum who knew that there is a time for everything and that everything must be regarded and treated and discussed in the proper manner.
Hans now shook hands with Auntie Schlotterbeck andUncle Grünebaum and they both talked to him comfortingly and soothingly. He looked round him again in the low, dark, shabby room and in spite of all his grief and all his pain he felt a calm, an assurance which, during his torturing journey, he thought he had lost forever.
And now Uncle Grünebaum prepared to express his feelings in a well considered speech; but Auntie Schlotterbeck interfered after his preliminary clearing of the throat and half persuasively, half forcibly led him out of the door so that all he could do was to call back over his shoulder:
"Don't excite her, Hans. Be humane with her; behave like a filial son and composed mind, the doctor has given us strict orders."
As soon as the mother and son were alone the mother said:
"You must forgive me, Hans, that I had you called away from your work; but I had such a great yearning for you I could not help it. You have always been my comfort; you must be it now too. I longed for you so much."
"Oh Mother, dear Mother," cried Hans Unwirrsch, "don't talk as if my happiness and welfare were more important than yours. Oh, if you only knew how gladly I would give everything that I have gained by my work while away if I could only spare you the smallest part of your pain! But you will grow better, you will soon be well again. Oh Mother, you don't know how much I need you; no wisdom that can be taught on earth can give what a mother's word and look gives us."
"Just hear the boy," cried Frau Christine. "Does he want to make fun of the old washerwoman. Such a learned gentleman! But never mind, Hans. Hans, do you know that you are growing more and more like your sainted father! He behaved just like that if the sun went behind the clouds for a little while. He was a scholar too, even if he hadn't been to the university and I often had to wonder at the man. One day he would be as high in the air as a lark and the next day he would creep along the earth like asnail. You will mount up into the blue sky again, Hans, don't worry about me; I have nothing to reproach God with, he has meant well with me; he has given me a happy life and he cannot help the burden that he now lays upon me; that is everyone's lot and no one can escape it."
Hans felt much humiliated at the bedside of this poor, simple woman who had to endure such tortures and yet could speak and comfort so heroically. Even though his grief at the loss which threatened him grew more violent, his weak despondency of the last few days disappeared. He felt sure on his feet again, his true, real sorrow gave him back his inner self-control; in his profession he separated the real, the content from the non-essential, and for the first time really applied it to life. These difficult days had a deeper effect upon him than all the days he had spent in lecture rooms or in only half fruitful study. He now stepped out of the unwholesome spell of flattering, enervating imaginings, and dull, heavy broodings into real life; he did not lose his hunger for the ideal, the transcendental, but to it was now added hunger for the real, and the fusing of both, which took place in such solemn hours, could not but produce a good cast.
He arranged a table for his work at his dying mother's bedside. There he sat and wrote and, at the same time, watched the sick woman's slumber. The consistory had given him his examination themes; he began to work at them with an eagerness which he had believed was quite dead in him. It was a strange, sadly happy time.
What a light Master Anton's glass globe cast across the table and through the room in the evening and at night! Never before and never afterwards did it shed such a lustre.
Frau Christine saw her whole life in its glow as in a magic mirror. She saw herself as a child, as a young girl, and felt as one. Her parents and her parents' parents came and went; she saw them as clearly and as vividly as Auntie Schlotterbeck herself might have seen them. She thought of the games she played as a child and of all hergirl friends, and the light of the globe was like moonlight, sunrise and sunset, or like high noon. The sick woman had forgotten so much and now suddenly it all came back to her and no part of it was lost,—it was really amazing. She often had to close her eyes because the figures and varied scenes of that distant time passed before her in too great abundance;—now for the first time she realized how much, how infinitely much she had experienced in her life after all. Her Anton had often complained that he had to sit so quiet and so surrounded by dusk and that he couldn't bear to think of all the people who journeyed over hill and dale and across the wide ocean and of those who discovered strange countries and of all the tumult and bustle that there was in the world;—Frau Christine thought of these complaints as she lay on her bed of pain, nodded and shook her head and smiled. Foolish Anton, had he not had enough turmoil and excitement in his life? Had there not been plenty of happenings in it? There was their wedding day, for instance, when Christine had danced for the last time as a girl and Anton had looked so stately in his wedding clothes. Had that not been a bright bit of life and a greater thing than to sail across the seas to outlandish places? And what had they not lived through in the time of the French wars, when Anna, to whom Brother Nik'las had nearly become engaged, had gone off with the Hussars? That had been in 1806 and it really seemed queer to think of how troubled Anton had been about the hard times and of how nobody thought of the French now any more than Brother Nik'las thought of Anna. There was Auntie Schlotterbeck who had lived through all these things and who could see the dead; but still she could not command all the memories that Frau Christine could, for she had never borne a child and had no son to grow up and sit at the table, a learned man, and send glances to her across his books. Oh, how much, how much one could think of by the light of the magic globe; it made it really easy, evenwhen the pain was at its worst, to lie quiet and to wait patiently for the last hour!
We described at the beginning how Hans, as a little child, lay in his bed in the winter night and watched his mother get ready for her early work. We spoke of the strange, mysterious pictures his fancy drew of the places to which she went, of how he saw the shadows dancing on the walls and watched carefully to see what became of them when the lamp was blown out. Now, as a grown man, he was compelled to give way to very similar and yet quite different feelings. He had had some experiences and had learnt much; it would have been no wonder if he had entered into these hours with more mature moods; but just as his mother was surprised at the return of the memories of her youth, so too he had reason to wonder at the return of these feelings.
While he turned over the pages of his books by the light of the glass globe and from time to time looked over at the sick woman's bed he thought of how his mother was now again preparing to go away and leave him alone in the dark. Just as then he had often begged her with tears to stay, so he would have liked to beg her now. Often the great fear came over him which he had felt such long years before when the lamp had been blown out, his mother's step had died away and sleep did not immediately close his eyes. He heard the snow trickling down the window as he had heard it then; the night watchman called the hours, the moonlight glimmered through the frozen panes, the old furniture cracked and creaked as it used to, the nocturnal world stirred in ghostly fashion as then.
If his mother was sleeping in such moments he could escape from the fearful throng of feelings only by working on as hard as possible at the most difficult parts of his task and even this did not always bring relief. But if his mother was awake he only needed to lay down his pen and to take her faithful hand in his: then the comfort he received was the best there could be for him. If there was anything thatlater influenced his acts, his plans, his views and his whole life it was the soft words that were whispered to him in such hours.
"See, dear child," said the old woman, "in my poor mind it has always seemed to me that the world would not amount to much if there were no hunger in it. But it must not be only the hunger for food and drink and a comfortable life, no, I mean a very different thing from that. There was your father, he had the kind of hunger that I mean and it is from him that you have inherited it. Your father too was not always satisfied with himself and with the world; not that he was envious because others lived in more beautiful houses, or drove in carriages, or anything like that; no, he was only troubled because there were so many things which he did not understand and which he would have liked so much to learn about. That is a man's hunger, and if a man has it and at the same time does not entirely forget those whom he ought to love, then he is a real man, whether he gets on well or not—that makes no difference. But woman's hunger lies in another direction. First of all it is for love. A man's heart must bleed for light, but a woman's heart must bleed for love. It is in this that she must find her joy. Oh child, I have been much better off than your father, for I have been able to give much love, and much, much love has fallen to my share. He was so good to me as long as he lived, and then, I have had you, and now when I am going to follow my Anton you sit beside me and what he wanted to have you have got and I have helped you to get it; isn't that enough to make me very happy? You must not grieve so about your foolish mother or you will make my heart heavy and I know you don't want to do that, you never have done it."
The son buried his face in the sick woman's pillows; he could not speak, he could only repeat the word, Mother! sobbingly, but all the emotion that moved him was expressed in it.
During his stay in Neustadt at that time Hans Unwirrschseldom left the house. He greeted all the neighbors in Auntie Schlotterbeck's room, but he himself paid few visits. Wherever he did appear, however, he was gladly received and Professor Fackler held him so fast that he had finally to tear himself away with force.
Oddly enough the Professor was now greatly interested in Dr. Moses Freudenstein and questioned poor, disturbed Hans most closely about him.
"So the Talmudistic hair-splitter has gone to Paris? I can tell you, Unwirrsch, that boy gave me more embarrassment while he was at school than I cared to show. We can talk about it now: his objections and conclusions, the way he played with questions and answers often drove the sweat of fear out on my forehead. Truly one could not say:Credat Judæus Apella,—that promising youth was not so credulous! With his appetite for all the good things of this world he'll make his way, there is no doubt about that, Unwirrsch. I can tell you, the greatest thing is the right kind of hunger; in monks' Latin—the gods of Latium protect us—we might say:Fames—famositas, Ha! Ha! Well, God bless you, Johannes, and give you strength to bear your sorrow at home. We have the greatest sympathy for you and if we can be useful to you in any way just come to me or to my wife. Eheu, after all, in spite of all good things, life is a vale of tears!"
To what this last sigh referred is not quite clear to us although it was so to Hans Unwirrsch, who firmly believed that it was occasioned by his mother's illness, and so, deeply touched, he took leave, for the time being, of the good professor.
During this time Uncle Grünebaum of course often found the opportunity to show himself in all his greatness. He came and went constantly and the house in Kröppel Street was not safe from him for a minute. Now he appeared in the door so suddenly that the sick woman started in her bed, now his dignified head darkened the window beside Hans' writing table so suddenly that the young manjumped up startled from his seat to gaze at the apparition. If it had not been for Auntie Schlotterbeck Uncle Grünebaum would have become a nuisance, but the thoughtful soul finally organized a regular watch service and more than one child in Kröppel Street received orders to give a warning sign when Master Grünebaum turned the corner. When the alarm sounded Auntie Schlotterbeck always went and stood at the door to intercept the uncle and send him home again by means of cunning, or sometimes to lead him into her own little room. And thither Hans was then ordered to receive his uncle's words of consolation and advice.
"So she is still no better? So sorry, it's too bad! But that's the way it goes in the world and if one man has to complain of his tobacco, the other has trouble with his pipe. We all have to come to this thing; but it has a curious way about it. Now, there sits Auntie Schlotterbeck, a worn-out, miserable person, nothing but bones in a leather sack and, if you won't take it amiss, my saying so, Mistress Schlotterbeck, for the last twenty years I have thought from day to day that you would go out like a tallow candle. But now, there lies my sister, who was a remarkably robust woman, near to death, and you, Auntie, you keep on glimmering as if it were a matter of course and after all, perhaps you'll outlive even me and see me running round in the streets as a spirit in a white shirt and with three pairs of old boots under each arm. I'm ready to believe anything of you now. Oh dear, dear, Hans, what is man? What does he not have to endure in his life? Such great hunger——"
"And such very great thirst," threw in Auntie Schlotterbeck.
"That too, Miss Schlotterbeck," continued Uncle Grünebaum with dignity, though not without showing some annoyance. "Such great hunger and—thirst, that no angel who has not tried it would believe. What does a man do when he has come to his years of discretion?"
"Sometimes he takes to drinking," grunted Auntie Schlotterbeck.
"He hungers and desires everything that hangs too high for him," snarled Uncle Grünebaum furiously. "Whoever asks too much deserves to get nothing; but whoever asks little certainly will get nothing at all. There was your father, boy; he had the most ludicrous kind of hunger and he asked too much as well; he wanted to be a cobbler and a scholar at the same time. What came of it? Nothing! Now, here is your dear Uncle Nik'las, who was gifted with too great modesty and asked nothing but his daily bread——"
"And the Red Ram and the political newspaper!" interposed Auntie Schlotterbeck again. "And as he liked to sit in the Red Ram better than on his work stool and as he liked better to whistle to his birds than to work and as he read thePost Courierin preference to the hymn-book, he comes here now and asks, what came of it and then actually wonders if the answer is again: nothing."
"Miss Schlotterbeck," replied Uncle Grünebaum, "you may impress some poor donkey that comes along, but can't impress me. I have enough of you for this time and I wish you good evening. It's enough to make me foreswear all Kröppel Street! Go to your mother, Hans, give her my love and my excuses that I could not see her this time, on account of excitement and inadequate self-control. I thank you, Auntie Schlotterbeck, for your pleasant entertainment and wish you, if it is possible, a clear conscience and a good night's rest!"
During this sad time Auntie Schlotterbeck surrounded Hans with even more love and solicitous attention than usual, if that were possible. The supernatural element that was mixed with her consolation could not disturb him. These apparitions of the dead of which she spoke as of something real, had nothing fearful about them, nothing confusing;—Hans Unwirrsch could sit for hours and listen to Auntie Schlotterbeck telling his sick mother about hervisions and see his mother nod at the mention of some detail and remember something long past and forgotten.
Auntie Schlotterbeck saw good Master Anton very frequently at that time, and the sick woman's worst pains were alleviated when Auntie Schlotterbeck told her about him.
It was a very severe winter. Neither Auntie Schlotterbeck nor Frau Christine, both of whom had lived through so many winters, remembered one like it. When Hans, half against his will, went out for a walk to get a breath of fresh air, he felt as though everything that lay round him would remain forever so cold and dead, so bleak and bare, as if it were impossible that in a few weeks the trees would grow green again. More than once he mechanically broke off a twig, carefully to unroll the brown leaves of the bud and to assure himself that spring was really only asleep and not dead.
But the snow melted in good time and the waters triumphantly broke their fetters. Hans Unwirrsch completed his work and one evening laid down his pen, stepped softly to his mother's bed and, bending down to kiss her, whispered:
"Dear Mother, I hope that I have succeeded."
At that his mother drew her son's head down to her with both her sick hands and kissed him too. Then she pushed him gently away and folded her hands. She moved her lips but Hans could not understand everything that she said. He heard only the last words.
"We have managed to do it, Anton! Now I can come to you!"
At the beginning of the new spring the Sunday came on which Hans was to preach his examination sermon. It was a day on which the sun shone again.
A glass of snowdrops stood beside the sick woman's bed and the church bells had never sounded more solemn than on that day. The son, in his black gown, bent over his mother and she laid her hand on his young head and looked at him with smiling, shining eyes. Johannes Unwirrschlooked deep, deep into those eyes which said more than a hundred thousand words would have said; then he went and Auntie Schlotterbeck and his Uncle followed him. His mother wished it to be so, she wanted to be alone.
There she lay still, and had no more pain. In thought she followed her child through the streets, across the market-place, across the old churchyard to the low door of the sacristy. She heard the organ and closed her eyes. Once more only did she open them wonderingly and look at the glass globe over the table; it seemed to her as if it had suddenly given forth a clear tone and as if she had been awakened by the sound. She smiled and closed her eyes again, and then—
And then? No one can say what followed then; but when Hans Unwirrsch came home from the church his mother was dead and all who saw her said that she must have had a happy death.
[As she had desired, Frau Christine was buried beside her husband. Those of her belongings that Hans wanted to keep Auntie Schlotterbeck took into her care; some of the rest were given to Uncle Grünebaum and some were sold. Hans rented the little house to a mason on the condition that in every respect Auntie Schlotterbeck should be recognized as its keeper and his agent.
After having thus arranged his affairs Hans bade farewell to Neustadt for the second time and prepared to enter on the career of a tutor as he had failed to find an unoccupied parish. He accepted a position on the estate of a certain Mr. von Holoch, whose two children, a son and a daughter, he was to bring up and instruct. These children gave him no particular difficulty; he easily won, too, theregard of the jovial master of the house whose interests were limited to hunting and agriculture, and the plump, good-humored and industrious housewife took care that his outward person increased in size. He was also good friends with the vicar and the manager as well as with all the other inhabitants of the estate and the village. He was temporarily embarrassed only when the housekeeper fell violently in love with him and finally behaved in such a way that she was obliged to leave the estate. Against his will and for no fault of his own Hans too, found that he must go. A rich aunt from whom a legacy might some day be expected appeared on the scene and Hans displeased her as much as he had pleased the housekeeper. She declared the tutor to be an unpolished boor who had never been properly brought up himself, and promised to have her nephew, Erich, educated to become a man of real culture, in the little capital where she was one of the bigger fish in the social sea. Mr. von Holoch and his wife were very sorry to see Hans go and, in their own way, gave him a touching farewell.