Hammer and Anvil: A Novel

by Friedrich Spielhagen

All was different now; different and far fairer, though I missed the great garden with its trees and flowers, and the sea I loved so well. But, on the other hand, there were no walls here nor bolted doors; and it was no passing greeting that I exchanged with the spring at a distance, but a clasp of the hand and a kindly embrace. We met in the evening, when, after my work was done, I rambled for an hour in the remotest parts of the great city park, regions to which seldom any one extended his wanderings, and where the nightingale sang undisturbed her sweet song in the budding bushes. And we met again when I stood on my balcony before sunrise and looked eastwards, where over the crowd of roofs and chimneys the eastern sky was bordered with purple clouds; and an hour later, as I went to work, when the first rays fell upon the pointed gables of the smoky old factory buildings, and the sparrows twittered so merrily on the eaves and in the crannies of the walls, and the earliest swallows darted over the yard, alert and busy as if the thick black laver of coal-dust that covered it was a sheet of the clearest water.

Yes; spring is here once more. I feel her warm breath playing around my cheeks and in my hair, and her kiss upon my brow, and I said to myself: "All must come right yet! All the snow which was piled up in the long winter nights is melted away, and the ice which then froze is melted; should not the frost which fell upon my heart in those winter nights also vanish away? Kind, gentle spring, and stern, earnest labor, what could resist you both when you go hand in hand? and what heart not beat more courageously that you two have filled?"

So I threw myself into the expanded arms of spring, and I caught the hard, honest hand of labor, and felt almost all my old strength and confidence once more. Almost all--assuredly, I thought, it could not be long before all were restored.

There was work enough in our establishment, and there would have been much more if the commerzienrath could have resolved to undertake the building of locomotives. The matter was one of extreme importance; indeed in my opinion it involved the question of the very existence, or, at least, of the prosperity of the works. If our establishment in this branch of industry did not comply with the requirements of the time, its well-earned reputation was at an end. Rival establishments, that were perhaps less favorably situated than ours, would throw themselves with all their energy into the new movement, and outstrip us, possibly for ever; for in the great departments of industry, if anywhere, not to progress is to retrograde irretrievably. Strangely enough, the man usually so intelligent and enterprising shrank from a resolution which to be sure was not to be carried out without great exertions, great alterations, and some temporary sacrifices. New machinery would have to be procured, the steam-power increased, the staff of the office and the force of workmen enlarged; new buildings would have to be erected, and this could not be done without bringing to a decision that long-pending question of the purchase of the ground on which my lodging stood. All this demanded ample funds, clear insight, and prompt decision.

Now with the commerzienrath there was, at least according to general opinion, no lack of money; but he seemed by no means so well furnished with the two other necessary qualities. All who understood anything of the matter--the manager of the works, a plain but intelligent man, with whom I had several times been brought into contact in matters concerning the workmen, and always found him friendly, the young chief of the Technical Bureau, the head-foreman, even Klaus himself--all were impatient and dissatisfied with their employer, who still held back from saying a decisive word, though every month of delay was an irreparable loss. But probably no one was more impatient and dissatisfied than I. I had carefully studied the recent brilliant history of railways in England and Belgium, and was convinced that the system would expand with us into colossal proportions, with an immense demand for locomotives. Then the locomotive had always been a favorite study of my beloved teacher, whose genius had already invented, even with the limited means at his command, and introduced in his models, the most important improvements which would be demanded by the growth and development of this branch of industry. It had been my good fortune to be allowed to help him in his theoretical studies and in the construction of his models, and my brain glowed as I saw that what had been planned and devised in the quiet closet of the thinker would now become a reality. So must a racer feel when he sees before him the course which he is to run, and yet is held back from the start, however he may champ the bit and paw the ground. I pondered and pondered how it might be possible to overcome this fatal resistance. At last I hit upon this plan: I would draw up a memorial, in which I would set forth in detail the reasons which rendered an enlargement of the establishment an absolute necessity, and at the same time a plan for carrying out this extension. This paper was to be sent to the commerzienrath, and it was to be hoped that it would not be without its effect upon him. The doctor, to whom I communicated my plan, did not exactly disapprove it, but by no means entered into it with the warmth that I had hoped. To be sure he was not qualified to comprehend the theoretical necessity of the case, nor did he share my passion for the locomotive; but it was impossible that he could be blind to the fact that I would open a way to give bread to hundreds and hundreds of workmen, and this was really the chief object with him. Instead, he again pressed me to accept his offer, and even to set up an establishment with his money, and we had very nearly had another quarrel when, for the second time, I felt myself obliged to decline his generous offer.

But how could I rob him, whose whole life was a sacrifice for the poor and miserable, of the means which he so generously and judiciously employed, if my enterprise failed, as well might happen? No! my plans were to be realized, if at all, with other money than the doctor's. But where was I to get it without stealing it, or waiting for the coming of the Javanese aunt, whose speedy arrival was an unconditional article of faith with Klaus and Christel? So my thoughts were compelled to revert to the commerzienrath, and one evening I began to write my memorial, which I completed in a few nights.

But no sooner was it finished than a new and weighty consideration presented itself. If I signed the paper with my name, my incognito was at an end; and, even if I did not sign it, it came to about the same thing, for it could only be the production of some one thoroughly acquainted with the establishment, and the commerzienrath would of course inquire for the author, and after creating much talk it would sooner or later be traced to me, when I should probably find that by a useless secrecy I had injured the cause I was advocating.

It was a perplexing dilemma, and I went about as in a dream, ever pondering over the unlucky memorial which lay finished upon my table, and might just as well have been left unwritten.

"But you must come to some decision," said Paula, "and here there can really be no question what that decision should be."

From a very intelligible feeling of shyness I had refrained from telling Paula what it was that lay so heavy on my mind; but Kurt, who worked in the establishment under Klaus's direction, and almost every evening, when he came from work, spent an hour with me, could not be kept ignorant of what I had in hand, and he had told all to his sister.