Chapter VI
A lovely, fine night had followed the day; the moon shone above all Europe and its peoples. All the clouds had been driven away and now lay loweringly on the Atlantic Ocean: all who could sleep, slept; but not everyone could sleep.
Bridal night and night of death in one! Through the woods the brooks flashed their silver sparks; the great streams flowed on, calm and shining. The woods, meadows and fields, the lakes, rivers and brooks—they were all in full harmony with the moon, but the odd pygmy-folk, men, in their cities and villages, far from being in harmony with themselves, left much to be desired in that respect. If she had not been the "gentle" moon, if she had not had a good reputation to maintain, she would not have lighted mankind, in spite of all the poets and lovers. She was gentle, and shone;—moreover, perhaps, she was touched by the confidence of the municipal authorities, who depended on her, and on her account did not light the street lamps.
She shone with the same brilliance and calm on all Europe—on the poor, tumultuous city of Paris where so many dead still lay unburied and so many wounded wrestled with death, and on the tiny town of Neustadt in its wide, peaceful valley. She glanced softly into the over-crowded hospitals and morgues;—she glanced softly into the traveling-coach of Charles X. and not less softly into the low chamber in which lay Christine Unwirrsch with her boy.
The child slept, but the mother lay awake and could not sleep for thinking of what she had heard when she came home so tired after her hard work.
It had taken her a long time to understand the confused report that Hans and Auntie Schlotterbeck had given; she was a simple woman who needed time before she could grasp anything that lay beyond her daily work and her poor household. To be sure, when once she did understand a thing she could analyze it properly and intelligently and consider and weigh the pros and cons of every detail; but she could scarcely understand in its broadest outlines this, her child's, aspiration out of the darkness toward the light.
THE COMMANDER OF THE FORTRESS
Permission Franz Hanfstaengl Karl Spitzweg
She only knew that in this child the same hunger had now made itself apparent, from which her Anton had suffered, that hunger which she did not understand and for which she nevertheless had such respect, that hunger which had so tormented her beloved, sainted husband, the hunger for books and for the marvelous things which lay hidden in them. The years which had passed since her husband had been carried to the grave had not blurred a single remembrance. In the heart and mind of the quiet woman the good man still lived with all his peculiarities, even the smallest and most insignificant of which death had transfigured and transformed into a good quality. How he paused in his work to gaze for minutes into the glass globe in front of his lamp in self-forgetfulness, how on his walks, on a beautiful holiday, he would suddenly stand still and look at the ground and at the blue dome above, how at night he woke and sat awake for hours in bed, murmuring unconnected words—all that was not, and never could be, forgotten. How the good man had toiled on at his trade between sighs and flushes of joy, cheerful and depressed moods,—how in his rare leisure hours he had studied so hard and, above all, what hopes he had set on his son and with what wonderful aspirations he had dreamt of this son's future—all lay clear before Christine Unwirrsch's soul.
The mother raised herself on her pillow and looked over at her child's bed. The moonlight played on the counterpane and the pillows and transfigured the face of the sleeping boy who had cried himself to sleep after telling his sorrowful tale, and on whose cheeks the traces of tears were still to be seen, although he now smiled again in his slumber and knew no more of the day's trouble. Round about the town of Neustadt the birds of night stirred in the bushes and along the edges of the streams and ponds; the night-watchman's hoarse voice sounded now near, now far; the clocks of the two churches quarreled about the right time and were of very different opinions; all the bats and owls of Neustadt were very lively, knowing their hours exactly and never making a mistake of a minute; mice squeaked in the wall of the bedroom and one mouse rustled under Mrs. Christine's bed; a bluebottle that could not sleep either flew about buzzing, now here, now there, now banging his head against the window, now against the wall and seeking in vain for some way out; in the next room the grandfather's chair behind the stove cracked and there was such a weird and ghostly pattering and creeping about in the attic that it was hard to adhere to the soothing belief in "cats." Mrs. Christine Unwirrsch, who, being gifted with a foreboding mind, usually had a keen and fearful ear for all the noises and sounds of the night and who did not in the least doubt the penetration of the spirit-world into her bedroom, had no time in this night to listen to these things and get goose-flesh in consequence. Her heart was too full of other matters and the ghosts that roam between earth and heaven and play at will on the nerves of men had no power over her. The mother felt her responsibility for the destiny of her child weigh heavy upon her and although she was a poor, ignorant woman she was not therefore less concerned; indeed, her concern was perhaps greater because her idea of her child's desire was incomplete and inadequate.
She looked long at sleeping Hans till the moon glided on in the firmament and the rays slipped from the bed and slowly retired toward the window. When at last complete darkness filled the room she sighed deeply and whispered:
"His father wished it, and no one shall set himself against his father's will. God will surely help me, poor, stupid woman that I am, to make it come out right. His father wished it and the child shall have his way according to his father's will."
She rose quietly from her couch and crept out of the room with bare feet, so as not to wake the sleeping boy. In the living room she lit the lamp. She sat down for a few moments on her husband's work-chair and wiped the tears from her eyes; and then she carried the light to that chest in the corner of which we have already told, knelt down and opened the ancient lock which offered obstinate resistance to the key as long as possible.
When the lid was laid back the room was filled with the scent of clean linen and dried herbs, rosemary and lavender. This chest contained everything precious and valuable that Mrs. Christine possessed and carefully she controlled herself so that no tear should fall into it. Carefully she laid back the white and colored linen, smoothing each fold as she did so; carefully she laid aside the little boxes with old, trivial knickknacks, broken, cheap jewelry, loose amber beads, bracelets of colored glass beads and similar treasures of the poor and of children, until, nearly at the bottom of the chest, she came to what she was seeking in the stillness of the night. With timid hand she first pulled out a little case with a glass cover; her head sank lower as she opened it. It contained Master Anton's book of songs and on the book lay a dried myrtle wreath. It was as if distant bells, the tones of an organ trembled through the night and through the soul of the kneeling woman; Auntie Schlotterbeck did not see the dead alive more clearly and distinctly than Christine Unwirrsch saw them at that moment. She folded her hands above the open case and her lips moved softly. No other prayer came to her mind but "Our Father" and that sufficed.
A second case stood beside the first, an old box made of oak, trimmed with iron, with a strong lock, an ingenious piece of work belonging to the seventeenth century, which had been in the possession of the Unwirrsches for generations. Mrs. Christine carried this box to the table and before she opened it she put everything back in its place in the chest; she loved order in all things and did nothing in haste even now.
It was a bright light that the little lamp and the hanging glass globe gave, but the box on the table, black with age as it was, outshone them both, its contents spoke louder of the preciousness of parents' love than if its price had been announced by a thousand trumpets in all the marketplaces of the world. The lock turned, the lid sprang open: money was in the box!—much, much money—silver coins of all kinds and even one gold piece wrapped in tissue paper. Rich people might well have smiled at the treasure but if they had had to pay the true value of every thaler and florin all their riches might not have sufficed to buy the contents of the black box. Hunger and sweat had been paid for every coin and a thousand noble thoughts and beautiful dreams clung to each. A thousand hopes lay in the dark box, Master Anton had hidden his purest self in it, and Christine Unwirrsch had added all her love and her faithfulness.
Who, just looking at the scanty heap of well-fingered pieces of money, could have imagined all this?
A little book, consisting of a few sheets of gray paper stitched together, lay beside the money; the father's hand had filled the first pages with letters and figures but then death had closed worthy Master Anton's account and for many years now the mother had done the bookkeeping, by faith, without letters and figures, and the account still balanced.
How often had Christine Unwirrsch gone hungry to bed, how often had she suffered all possible hardships without yielding to the temptation to reach out her hand for the black box! In every form distress had approached her in her miserable widowhood, but she had resisted with heroism. Even without letters and figures, she could render her account at any moment;—it was not her fault if the happy, honorable future which the dead man had dreamt of for his son did not rise out of the black box.
Mrs. Christine sat in front of the table for more than an hour that night, counting on her fingers and calculating, while across the street in a little back room of the junk-dealer's house a man also sat figuring and counting. Samuel Freudenstein, too, was sitting up for his sleeping boy's sake. More than a few rolls of gold pieces, more than a few rolls of silver pieces lay before him; he had more to throw into his child's scales of fortune than the poor widow.
"I will arm him with everything that is a weapon," he murmured. "They shall find him prepared in every way, and he shall laugh at them. He shall become a great man; he shall have everything that he wants. I was a slave, he shall be a master among a strange people, and I will live in his life. He has a good head, a sharp eye; he will make his way. He shall think of his father when he has reached the height; I will live in his life."
The widow divided her scanty day's wages into two parts. The greater part fell into the oak box and was added to the other savings of long years of toil, and the small coins gave a clear ring. Samuel Freudenstein added more than a hundred shining thalers to his son's fortune; no one in Kröppel Street as much as suspected what a rich man the junk-dealer had again gradually grown to be.
The moonlight had entirely disappeared from the widow's bedroom when she crept shiveringly back from the living room. Hans Unwirrsch still slept soundly and not even the kiss that his mother pressed on his forehead waked him. The lamp too went out and Mrs. Christine soon slept as peacefully as her child. About the bed of King Solomon stood sixty strong men with swords in their hands, skilled in battle, "for the sake of the fear in the night;" but at the head of the widow and her child there stood a spirit that kept better watch than all the armed men in Israel.
Throughout nearly the whole summer the battle with Uncle Grünebaum went on. It was long since the world had seen such an obstinate cobbler. Tears, pleadings, and remonstrances did not soften, touch or convince him. A man who could hold his own with the Seven Wise Masters, in every respect, could not be moved from his standpoint so easily by two silly women and a stupid boy. He had resolved in his shaggy, manly breast that Hans Unwirrsch, like all the other Unwirrsches and Grünebaums, should become a shoemaker and with a mocking whistle he repulsed every attack on his understanding, his reason and his heart. Scarcely a day passed on which he did not with his piping rouse Auntie Schlotterbeck from her calm. The more irritated the women grew, the hotter in their arguments, the sharper in their words, the more melodious did Uncle Grünebaum become. He generally accompanied the beginning of every new discussion with a valiant, warlike tune and brought the conversation to a vain conclusion with the most melting, yearning melodies.
"Master Grünebaum, Master Grünebaum," cried Auntie, "if the child is unhappy later it will be your fault—your fault alone! I have never seen a man like you in all my born days."
Whether Prince Eugene's song was sung as an answer to these words was open to doubt: Master Grünebaum whistled it like "himself a Turk."
"Oh, Niklas," cried his sister, "what kind of a man are you? He is such a good child and his teachers are so satisfied with him and his father wanted him to learn everything that there is to learn. Think of Anton, Niklas, and do give in, please do, I beg you to."
Uncle Grünebaum did not give in for a long time yet. He expressed the thought that cobbling was also a fine, meditative, learned business and that "trade is the mother of money," very strikingly by means of the melody: "The linen-weavers have a fine old guild," but refused to say more.
"That's right, go on whistling!" screamed Auntie Schlotterbeck with her arms angrily akimbo. "Go on whistling, you fool! But I tell you, you may stand on your head, the child shall go to the great schools and the universities nevertheless. Sit there like a blind bullfinch and go on whistling. Cousin Christine, don't cry, don't show him you care, it only gives him a wicked pleasure. Such a tyrant! Such a barbarian! And after all, it's your child, not his! But the Lord will set things right, I know, so do take your apron from your eyes. Keep on whistling now, Master Grünebaum, but remember, you'll answer for it by and by; think what you will say to Master Anton up above when the time comes!"
It seemed as if when the time came Uncle Grünebaum intended to justify himself to his sainted brother-in-law by the beautiful song: "A squirrel sat on the thorny hedge"—at least he whistled it with pensive emotion, and twiddled his thumbs in accompaniment.
"Oh, Niklas, what a hard-hearted man you are!" sobbed his sister. "Auntie is right, you will never be able to justify yourself for what you are doing to your brother-in-law's child——"
"And it's better to be a rag-picker than such a shiftless cobbler who wastes the time God has given him at the beer table in the Red Ram. And a creature like that wants to balk and kick out behind if a poor child wants to get ahead! If he'd only wash his hands and comb his hair, the fellow! I'd like to see anybody that would want to take him for an example and a model. There isn't anybody else like him and a man like that wants to keep others from washing themselves and being an honor to their parents. But I build on God, Master Grünebaum. He'll show you what you really are. It's really absurd that a man wants to play the guardian who can't even guard himself."
The melody "Kindly moon, thou glidest softly" must have a very soothing effect indeed on human feelings; Uncle Grünebaum whistled it meltingly as long as Auntie Schlotterbeck continued to speak, and however great may have been the anger that boiled in his breast, the world saw nothing of it. When Hans Unwirrsch came home from school with his bag of books he found the two women in a very excited state with scarlet faces, and his uncle quite composed, even-tempered and calm;—he did indeed guess what they had been talking about again but he seldom learnt any of the details of the discussion.
Usually Uncle Grünebaum took his departure while whistling a hymn or some other solemn air and at the same time pinching poor Hans' ear with a grin; Mephistopheles might have envied him his smile and after he had gone the women generally dropped on the nearest chairs, exhausted and broken in spirit, and for several hours were incapable of believing in human and divine justice.
In the cornfields the scythes flashed and swished; Uncle Grünebaum had still not given in. Without the aid of any wind all kinds of fruit detached themselves from the branches and fell to the ground; Uncle Grünebaum held more obstinately to his opinion than ever. Silver threads spread over the earth and wavered through the air: Uncle Grünebaum did not waver with them but laughed scornfully from his low three-legged stool. The foliage in the woods changed daily to an ever gayer hue, but Uncle Grünebaum's view of the world and life did not change. Moses Freudenstein boasted more and more proudly in his triumph, and Hans Unwirrsch's expression grew more and more miserable and depressed. The song-birds chirped their last melodies and prepared for their flight to the South: Uncle Grünebaum joined in the chirping, but he put his trust in the psalmist's promise "so shalt thou dwell in the land and verily thou shalt be fed," for he was too thoroughly convinced that he was indispensable in Neustadt, in the "Red Ram" and in his family. No Deus ex machina descended to bring aid to poor Hans and so he finally had no alternative but to help himself. He carried out a plan which had required a long time to mature in his mind, thus throwing Auntie Schlotterbeck and his mother into giddy amazement and putting his stiff-necked Uncle Grünebaum entirely beside himself.
One Sunday morning at the beginning of September Professor Blasius Fackler, doctor of philosophy and one of the lights of the local "Gymnasium," ruled alone in his house and felt safe and comfortable, as he seldom did, in his study.
His wife with her two daughters was at church, in all probability praying to God to forgive her for the agitated hours which she occasionally caused the "good man," that is, her lord and master. The maid had absented herself on private business; the house was still, it was indeed a gray day that looked into the study filled with clouds of tobacco smoke, but the joyful soul of the professor roamed over a blue welkin with the song-book of Quintus Valerius Catullus and drank in the ecstatic moments of freedom,—
Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus,
rumoresque senum severiorum
omnes unius aestimemus assis.
He strolled in the shade of the pomegranates and pines by the lake of Benakus on the blessed peninsula of Sirmio and the sparkling rhythmic waves of the Roman poet washed into nothingness all thoughts of the present and of that Lesbia who at that moment was singing sharply and shrilly in the church. He failed to hear the sound of the doorbell, did not catch the timidly soft tread that mounted the stairs; he was not roused till something scratched and tapped gently at his door. Quickly the Latin rogue Catullus hid himself under a heap of more serious scholarly equipment, and with dignity the professor and doctor of philosophy called:
"Come in!"
No one accepted the invitation and it was repeated more loudly, but this time too without success. Bewildered, the scholar rose from his chair, drew his long dressing-gown tight about him, and now with still greater amazement admitted a tiny laddie of about eleven years into his study, a laddie who trembled in every joint and over whose cheeks the tears ran down. No one was present at the interview that this visitor had with Professor Fackler and we cannot give the details of the conversation. Only this we can say, that when Lesbia returned from church with her two daughters, the charming pledges of the "thousands and thousands of kisses," she found her husband in a very pleased mood. He did not give her the attention which she expected from him but continued to straddle up and down the room and to murmur:
"I declare! A plucky little fellow! Puer tenax propositi! He shall have his way! By all the gods of Olympus he shall attain what he desires and may it be of benefit to him!"
"What shall be of benefit? Of benefit to whom, Blasius?" asked Lesbia, laying down her hymn-book.
"Someone shall be taken by the heel and dipped into the Styx, dearest, so that he may be proof against the afflictions of life and emerge victorious from the battle of men."
"This is one of your silly, incomprehensible days, Blasius," cried Mrs. Fackler, with vexation and looked as if she would have liked to give her husband a good shaking. Fortunately, however, at that moment Eugenia and Cornelia came running in and hung on their father's arms with all kinds of childish questions and requests. The latter pointed to their mother and quoted with hollow voice:
"Jove tonante, fulgurante, comitia populi habere nefas,"
drew on his coat, put on his hat, took his stick, went out and—paid a visit to Uncle Grünebaum. Uncle Nikolaus Grünebaum, however, to his own "highest perplexity" made a long, beautiful speech that afternoon in Kröppel Street to the accompaniment of some most excellent coffee which Auntie Schlotterbeck had brewed, and expressed himself more or less in the following expectoration:
"Inasmuch as a cobbler is a noble and honorable calling yet nevertheless all the children of men cannot be cobblers, but there must also be other people, tailors, bakers, carpenters, masons and such like, so that every feeling and sentiment may be provided for and no sense be left without its necessary protection. But also because there are other wants in the world and man needs much before and prior to the time when he needs nothing more, there are also advocates and doctors more than too many and in addition professors and pastors more than enough. But God lets things go on as they will and the devil takes one and all, odd and even, which is to say that a boy who wants to choose his occupation must look far ahead and consider carefully in which direction his bent lies, for it has happened more than once that an ass has thought that he could play the lute. But it isn't everyone who can make a boot either, it isn't as easy as it looks. Now there are present here Christine Unwirrsch, widow of the late Anton Unwirrsch, secondly the unmarried spinster Schlotterbeck, also a very good specimen of sound common sense and natural ability. Moreover, there is present, Master Nik'las Grünebaum, who am not up in the air, either, but without wanting to boast, stand squarely on my feet. Before these three there stands the individual whom the matter concerns, Hans Jakob Nik'las Unwirrsch, who at least has demonstrated himself to be a youth of courage and who has sought to trip up his dearest relatives behind their backs. Such a little bantam!"
Both women raised their hands to beseech the blessing of heaven on the youthful genius, Hans Unwirrsch; but his uncle continued.
"When the professor stood in front of me all of a sudden, I said to myself, 'Steady, Grünebaum, hold on to your chair!' Such a boy! But the professor is an estimable, reasonable, pleasant gentleman and so the long and short of the matter is this, that from half past eleven this morning on, I will have nothing more to do with it and will wash my hands."
"In which you do very well, Master Grünebaum," said Auntie Schlotterbeck.
"And so things may go as they like, the devil takes both odd and even!" concluded Uncle Grünebaum.
"Nik'las!" cried Mrs. Christine, irritated, "I hope that my son will never have to do with the devil either in an odd or even way, and as for letting things go as they like, I hope he won't do that either."
"Come, come, don't be sacrilegious and touchy," growled her brother. "Well then, what I and Professor Fackler wanted to say, as an over-learned individual is still a man after all, you shall have your way, my boy, as far as we are concerned. Enough, I have said it! And I don't suppose the highly laudable profession of cobbling will lose any miracle in you, scamp."
The mother's feelings found relief in a stream of tears, Auntie Schlotterbeck nearly melted away with joyful emotion; Hans Unwirrsch was never able afterwards to give an account of his feelings in that hour, either to himself or to others. But the person who remained entirely unmoved and calm, or seemed to, was Uncle Grünebaum. He complacently pressed the tobacco down in his short pipe with his cobbler's thumb, closed the lid carefully like a man who has done a good work and who at most will allow the credit that rightly belongs to him to be entered in the great ledger of heaven.
But however he might appear, he had lost his power over his nephew and could never regain it. From the moment when Hans Unwirrsch gave the rudder of his life such an effective jerk with his own small hand, he confronted the worthy master with a fully enfranchised will of his own and the latter's amazement and bewilderment were only the more boundless, the greater the equanimity that he displayed.
Destinies had to be fulfilled and Hans Unwirrsch started on the road that Anton Unwirrsch had not been allowed to travel. The following noon Auntie Schlotterbeck met the deceased master; he was bent and hung his head in his usual manner, but he smiled contentedly.