“My grandfather was serving as apprentice at the time when Dr. Faust lived here, and told me many tales of the wonderful things the great doctor used to do. Thus one day he played at bowls on the big Ring (place) with large round stones, which as they rolled were changed into human heads, and became stones again as soon as they stood still. Another time he assumed the shape of the town parson, and as such walked up and down the church roof, finally standing on his head at the top of the steeple, to the terror and amazement of the people below; then when the real parson made his appearance on the Ring, he jumped down among the crowd in guise of a large black cat with fiery eyes, which forthwith disappeared.
“Once, also, on occasion of a large cattle-fair, there was suddenly heard the sound of military music, and, lo and behold! in place of the sheep, calves, oxen, and horses, there marched past a regiment of soldiers with flying colors and resounding music. The people rubbed their eyes, scarce believing what they saw and heard; then, as still they stared and gaped, the band-master gave a signal, the music turned to a hundredfold bleating and bellowing, and the sheep, cattle, and horses stood there as before.
“At last, as every one knows, Dr. Faust was carried off to hell. Our Lord would gladly have saved him from this doom, for the doctor had always a kind heart, and had done much good to the poor; but to save him was impossible, for he had sold himself by contract to the devil, who kept strict watch over him, and never let him out of sight.”
Also, as architect Dr. Faust was renowned throughout Transylvania, but he often played tricks on the people, who grew to distrust him and decline his services. The numerous Roman roads still to be met with all over the country are attributed to Dr. Faust, who, it is said, constructed them with the assistance of the evil one.
The shops at Hermanstadt are such as might be expected from its geographical position and the sort of people inhabiting it; in fact, you are agreeably surprised to find here fashions no more ancient than of two years’ date. Shopkeepers here still retain the antediluvian habit of eating their dinner as we hear of them doing some hundred years ago. When twelve o’clock strikes every shop is closed, and you would knock in vain against any of the barred-up doors; the streets become suddenly empty, and a stranger arriving at that hour would be prone to imagine himself to have stepped into a sleeping city. There are two fairly good German booksellers, several photographers, and sufficient choice of most other things to satisfy all reasonable wants. Yet there were people among our acquaintances who, scarcely more reasonable than children crying for the moon, used to fly into a passion, and consider themselves ill-used, because they had failed to procure some fashionable kind of note-paper, or the newest thing out in studs.
Sometimes, it is true, the narrow circle of Hermanstadt traffic showed its threadbare surface in the most amusing manner, as, for instance, when in an evil hour I bethought myself of ordering a winter jacket trimmed with otter-skin fur. Three skins would suffice for my purpose, as the tailor had calculated; so, accordingly, I went the round of all the fur-selling shops in the place. There were four of these who kept fur among other goods, and by a curious coincidence each of them confessed to possessing one otter only. Three out of the four could not show me their skin; they were unable to lay hand on it at that precise moment, it seemed, but if I would step round later in the day it should be produced. Returning, therefore, some hours later, I found, indeed, the promised otter in shop No. 2, but Nos. 3 and 4 were, for some mysterious reason, unable to keep their word, putting me off again to the following day; and by a strange accident the otter in shop No. 1 had now disappeared. Then ensued a wild-goose chase—or, I suppose, I should call it a wild-otter hunt—all round the shops again for several days, having glimpses of an otter now at one shop, now at another, but never by any chance in two shops simultaneously, till at last an energetic summons on my part to confront all four together, led to the melancholy revelation that there existed but one single otter in the whole town of Hermanstadt, the poor hard-worked animal alternately figuring among the goods of four different tradesmen.
In olden times, as we are told, the furrier guild of Hermanstadt was very illustrious. Its members once specially distinguished themselves in a fray with the Turks by delivering their Comes, in danger of being cut down. Since that time the guild enjoyed the distinction of executing the sword-dance on solemn occasions, particularly at the installation of each new Comes.
This anecdote occurred to my mind more than once in the course of my otter-hunt; and I sadly reflected that the Comes would probably be left to perish to-day, while the sword-dance would be apt to assume somewhat shabby proportions if executed by the four greasy Jews, with their solitary otter, which is all that remains of the once famous guild.[73]
Other provincial towns as small as or smaller than Hermanstadt can always show a certain amount of resident families whose hospitable houses are thrown open to strangers living there for a time. Here there is nothing of the sort, the wealthier class being entirely made up of Saxon burghers, who have no notions of friendly intercourse with strangers. It is difficult to explain the reason of this ungracious reserve, for they are neither wanting in intelligence nor in learning. Their education is unquestionably superior to that of Poles or Hungarians of the same class of life; but even when well informed in all branches of science, music, and literature, and on the most intimate terms with Goethe and Schiller, Mozart and Beethoven, they can rarely be classed as gentlefolk, from their total lack of outward polish and utter incomprehension of the commonest rules of social intercourse. Even persons occupying the very highest positions in Church and State are constantly giving offence by glaring breaches of every-day etiquette. This proceeds, no doubt, from ignorance, from want of natural tact, rather than from any intentional desire to slight; but the result is unquestionably that strangers, who might certainly derive much advantage from intercourse with some of these people, are deterred from the attempt by the lack of encouragement with which they are met.
I should, however, be ungrateful were I not to acknowledge that among the Transylvanian Saxons I learned to know several, to whose acquaintance I shall always look back as a pleasant reminiscence. First and foremost among these I should like to mention our worthy physician Dr. Pildner von Steinburg, to whom I am indebted for many interesting details of Saxon folk-lore. Also, I can count among the people I am glad to have known more than one of the school professors and several village pastors; and I am truly convinced that I might have extended my acquaintance with pleasure and profit considerably had circumstances so permitted. But precisely therein lies the difficulty. The Transylvanian Saxon burgher is a very hard nut indeed to crack, and in order to get at the sound kernel within, one has to encounter such a very tough outside that few people care to attempt it. No doubt much of the imposed code of etiquette of the civilized world is an empty sham which lofty spirits should be able to dispense with; but unfortunately we are so narrow-minded that we cannot entirely divest ourselves of the prejudices in which we were brought up.