Habits and Children
IN spite of Anderson, Gard could not make up his mind that Rudolph was anything more than a young braggadocio. The idea of an ordinary family living comfortably along with a spy in its midst, ready to inform on them and their guests, was so foreign to his notions, so caddish, that it weakened his confidence in his compatriot's judgment. While Gard felt that Rudi was not "straight," he could not consider him downright harmful. However, under the spur of the valuable significance that Anderson attached to this typical household life, Kirtley felt it profitable to observe closely its manifestations and opinions. They were verified in other German families where Gard often went with the Buchers. What could be more truly educational?
In defiance of the famous Teuton discipline, a certain disorderliness ran through the management of Villa Elsa. This surprised him. The eruptive way meals were served, the jumbled-up spectacle of the dining table, beds made up at any time of day, knitting and sewing going on in many rooms—all this was in unforeseen contrast to the rigorous military and educational training and precision. He could but compare the genre picture of looseness in the homes with that of the correct and fine army.
The inadequate, almost primitive, bathing facilities in Villa Elsa corresponded to the unscoured condition of its occupants. The unsightly hairiness of German skins seemed to answer for much washing. There was little thought of soap and hot water as a law of health, a delight, a luxury. Kirtley had assumed that soiled bodies did not betoken the loftiest state of man. But the bath was looked upon here as a disagreeable performance and accordingly was only indulged in at infrequent intervals. It was discussed freely at table as a forthcoming, dreaded event. Gard bathed in town. As for fresh underwear and hose, they were talked of over soup like some new and rare dispensation of Providence.
Fräulein alone had a toothbrush and powder, and they appeared rather conspicuously here and there as if they were modern ornaments of which the household was visibly proud. Bad breaths coming from decayed teeth and from stomachs sour with drink were freely blown about and without apologies. Indeed, apologies about anything were small features at all times.
There was no particular provision for the maid. Gard scarcely knew where or how she slept. Tekla dressed with unconcern in the kitchen and in the hall. Servant girls were rather considered like calves and therefore entitled to scant human consideration. The odors, the unsightly colors, the clatter of the German home, gave further evidence of the absence of sensitiveness, of any fine and balanced poise of nerves.
This repulsiveness of existence, of course, did not affect the audible consciousness of the family about their representing the most progressive state of civilized man. And not to be forgotten was the German ill-temperedness, which was pronounced in the morning, and did not wear off considerably until stomachs were filled during the day. All these facts testified that the Teuton little cultivates loveliness in human contact. Beauty of living is not, with him, a natural end to attain.
After awhile it came over Kirtley that the Buchers showed no interest in his antecedents or in his country. Their apparent ignorance of America was rivaled by their indifference about it. They evidently were of the firm conclusion that there was nothing worth while there to learn, nothing worthy of attention. It was, to them, an unprofitable jumble of peoples and things in a rudimentary, unvarnished state of development. It was Patagonia trying to copy the ways of Europe. This was but a feature of the Teuton tribal belief that all the racial evolutions outside the German borders were undesirable, demoralizing and mischievously blocking the outspread of Kultur.
Gard could not but know of the limited income on which existence went on at Villa Elsa. It was characteristic. Though limited, the income was secure. Despite the economies practiced, the prevailing confidence and self-satisfaction did not suffer, as a result, the slightest impairment. It was significantly German.
"There are here none of the spectacular ups and downs, everlasting sudden changes and movings to and fro, riches one year, poverty the next, the unsettledness and acute money misfortunes, that make up so large a share of our feverish, restless, uncertain Yankee careers. There does not seem to be a synonym for 'hard up' in German. As for us Americans the habitual changes of location of the household, the separation of the parents for reasons of business, travel, or inharmonious temperaments, the resultant ever-growing crop of divorces, the frequent living apart of the children, both from fathers and mothers and from the home, the loose family ties and ignoring of kin who are not of the most immediate relationship—how far is all this from the steady, compact, solid, unanxious and unthreatened examples of Villa Elsa and German households in general!"
The Teutons had a paternal Government which they knew would not let them come to want. Their firesides could thrive and accomplish greatly on so small a basis because this was stationary and unfailing. The American needed so much more because, with him, all was relatively unsafe. While he hesitated about rearing a large family for this reason among others, the German had no such thought of dodging the future, for he knew his children would be taken care of.
In fact, he raised his progeny conspicuously for the State. Parental feeling was secondary to the Kaiser's wishes. The Bucher children, like usual German children, were in effect dedicated to the Government, consecrated to its uses. It could come in and did come in and take this boy or girl for that and that one for this. It had designated Rudi for hydraulic engineering and indicated his university course to that end. Ernst was selected for philosophy. The parents were not only willing but proud of this. It was not for them to resent such outside interference because of any personal likes of their own.
Gard wrote Rebner:
"In America, the child's future is somewhat a matter of buffeting back and forth aimlessly between teacher and parent. The latter is disposed to shirk the responsibility by leaning on the shoulders of the instructor who is inclined to keep shifting the burden back to the home. As a result, while the German youngster is early being adapted to a particular future course for which Nature has given him an aptitude, his American competitor is often left to drift through the years without definite ambition, or at least with only a belated or partly drilled preparation therefor."
In Germany, Kirtley observed, the Government stood as the real father. The actual father was its representative. The mother played a subsidiary rôle. All was the father idea. The Germans call it Fatherland, not Motherland, as the English affectionately term their own country.
This interposition of the State in the Teuton family weakens the links of personal tenderness. The State rather than Love rules the home. Hence resulted the unfeelingness that Kirtley observed in the life about him in Loschwitz—the roughness so little tempered with affection, but, instead, frankly interpreted and exhibited as the true bearing of the dominant male's masculine nobility.
Quite normally, then, came about the extensive amount of open and violent quarreling which Gard noticed in the households. In Villa Elsa the Herr quarreled with the Frau, each quarreled with the children, they quarreled with Tekla, and she took it out on the dogs. It was not disputing among self-respecting equals, but ill-humored domineering over those who were confessedly underneath.