At this moment "madam" appeared, and she was Pomuchelskopp's sterner half. She was extremely tall, and as angular as king Pharaoh's seven lean kine, her forehead was always wrinkled into a frown, as if the cares of the whole world were laid upon her, or as if she were always suffering a sort of martyrdom, or as if all the crockery broken by all the maid-servants throughout the world belonged to her, and her mouth had such a bitter curve that one would have thought that, she was accustomed to drink vinegar, and eat sorrel. She wore every morning, in spite of the hot summer-weather, a black merino dress that she had bought once when she was in mourning, and that must therefore be worn out, and when she changed it she put on a cotton gown which she had had dyed olive green with elder-bark; and on such occasions as Pomuchelskopp wore a blue coat and brass buttons, she put on a cap with so many frills and furbelows that her weazened face peering out of it, looked for all the world like a half starved mouse in a bundle of tow; as for the rest of her dress, she wore petticoat on the top of petticoat, but still her poor shrunken legs looked like a couple of knitting-needles that had lost their way in a bag of odds and ends. At such times it was advisable that her servants should keep out of her way, for when she went about with velvet or silken streamers, her soul was weighed down with the constant fear, of unnecessary expense in housekeeping details.
She was a "mother" who pondered day and night how she might best make a waistcoat for Phil out of an old dress of Mally's. She loved her children according to the Scriptures, and so she chastened them, and Tony might count two slaps on the back for every stain on his coat, and two on the legs for every stain on his trousers. Yes, she was stern to her own flesh and blood, but still she was able to rejoice in due measure, as for instance to-day, when she came into the garden, and saw how her youngest olive-branches were amusing themselves, a smile then crossed her face like a pale gleam of sunshine in February when the earth is still frozen, and which seems to say: "Never fear, spring is coming at last."
She was the kind of wife of whom it might be said that she never in thought, word, or deed sinned against the letter of her duty, although Pomuchelskopp's conduct was rather trying, for in her opinion he was often guilty of too great levity; for instance, when he thought a joke a good one, he would laugh at it outright, and that was not seemly behaviour in the father of a family, and must necessarily end by impoverishing him, and bringing her and her children to beggary. She therefore did more than she was bound to do by her marriage-vows, she discouraged such outward signs of mirth, and gave him of her own vinegar to drink, and of her own sorrel to eat. She lectured him--that is to say when they were alone--as if he were her youngest son Phil, she treated him as if he were still a child; in short, she bullied him after her own fashion.--She never beat him--God forbid!--She contented herself with words. She understood how to bring him round to her way of thinking by the mode of her address: if he were behaving with undignified thoughtlessness, she called him coldly and hardly by the last syllable of his name, "Kopp," for she generally addressed him by the two middle syllables, "Muchel;" but when he was acting so as to meet with her entire satisfaction, for instance, when he sat crossly in the corner of the sofa, and slashed angrily at the flies, she called him by the beginning of his name in a loving tone, "Pöking."[[6]]
She did not call him "Pöking" to-day. "Kopp," she said, to show her disapproval of his undignified manner of testifying his amusement at what the boys were doing, "Kopp, why are you standing there smoking like a chimney? Let us go and call at the parsonage."--"My chick," involuntarily taking the pipe out of his mouth, "we can set off at once if you like. I shan't be a moment in changing my coat."--"Coat? Why! you don't suppose that I am going to put on my best black silk?--We are only going to call on our clergyman."--She laid as great an emphasis on the word "our," as if she had been speaking of her shepherd, or as if she thought that the parson was indebted to her for his daily bread.--"Just as you like, my Henny. I can put on my brown overcoat instead.--Phil, don't beat the statue any more, mama doesn't like it."--"Never mind the children, Kopp, you've got enough to do, to look after yourself. You'll go in your nankin-coat, it is clean and good."--"My chuck," said Pomuchelskopp, who, when he was of a different opinion from the wife of his bosom, always began with "Henny," and ended with "chuck," "always dress in good style, my dearest chuck. Even if we don't do it for the sake of the clergyman's family, let us do it for our own sake. And if Mally and Sally go with us, they ought to dress so as to make an imposing impression on the people at the parsonage."
This last reason was deemed a sufficient one, and gained Pomuchelskopp leave to put on his brown coat. He was made very happy by being allowed to have his own way, a piece of good fortune that did not often happen to him, so he felt proportionably grateful, and being desirous of pleasing his Henny in return for her kindness, he wished to make her partake in his joy. Let no one imagine however that Pomuchelskopp was so ill-bred as to give audible signs of merriment in his own house, no, he was always humble and quiet when there. He waved his hand towards the fields around him, and said; "Look, my chick, these all belongs to us!"--"Muchel," said madam shortly, "you are exaggerating, that is Pümpelhagen down there."--"You are right, Henny, that is Pümpelhagen.--But," he added, his little eyes twinkling avariciously as he looked down on Pümpelhagen, "who knows?--If I am spared, and if I sell my Pomeranian property well, and the times remain good, and the old Counsellor dies, and his son contracts debts ....."--"Yes, Muchel," interrupted his affectionate wife with the satirical curl of her lip, which the world had to accept as her only substitute for a smile, for it was the nearest approach to one that ever was seen on her face, "yes, that is just like old Strohpagel, when he said: if I were ten years younger, and were steadier on my legs, and hadn't my wife, you would all see what sort of fellow I really am!"--"Henny," said Pomuchelskopp, putting on an injured expression, "how can you say such a thing? How could I ever wish to get rid of you? I should never have been able to buy Gürlitz without the eight thousand five hundred pounds you inherited from your father. And what a splendid place Gürlitz is! All that land belongs to it," and he waved his hand as he spoke.--"Yes, Kopp," said his wife shortly, "except the glebe, which you have allowed to slip through your fingers."--"Dear me, chuck, will you never leave the subject of the glebe alone! What can I do?--You see I am a straightforward, honest man, so what chance have I with a couple of sly rogues like Hawermann and the parson? But we hav'n't done with each other yet, Mounseer Hawermann! We'll have some thing to say to each other before long, reverend Sir!"
Three neat little maidens were seated in Mrs. Behrens' tidy parlour in Gürlitz parsonage on the same morning. They were plying their needles and tongues busily, for they were trying a race both in sewing and in talking, and as they sat there they looked as sweet and rosy in contrast with the white linen, as freshly plucked strawberries on a white plate. And these three children were Louisa Hawermann, and the twins, Lina and Mina Nüssler.--"Children," said little Mrs. Behrens, on one of the many incursions from the kitchen into the parlour, "you can't think what a pleasure it is to me in my old age when I am laying the clean linen away in the chest, that I know exactly when I spun and hemmed each separate piece! How differently one treats it when one knows from experience how much trouble it has cost. Mina, Mina, that hem's all crooked. Goodness gracious me, Louisa, I believe you've been going on sewing without ever looking what you were about, don't you see that you haven't got a knot on your thread! Now I must go and see that the potatoes are boiling properly, for my pastor will soon be in," and then she hastened from the room, only popping her head in at the door again to say, "Mina and Lina, you are to remain to dinner," and so she kept flying about between kitchen and parlour in measured time like the pendulum of a clock and keeping everything in good order in both.
But how was it that Lina and Mina had joined Mrs. Behrens' sewing-class? This was how it happened--When the two little girls had grown so old that they could pronounce the letter "r," and no longer cared about playing with the sand-box, but ran after Mrs. Nüssler all day long, saying: "What shall we do now, mother?" Mrs. Nüssler told young Joseph that it was high time for the children to have some schooling: they must have a governess. Joseph had no objection, and his brother-in-law Baldrian the schoolmaster, was commissioned to engage one. When the governess had been six months at Rexow, Mrs. Nüssler said she was a discontented old woman who did nothing but nagg at the children all day long, and made her so uncomfortable that she scarcely felt at home in her own house. So that governess had to take her departure.--Kurz, the shop-keeper, chose the next, and one day, when no one in Rexow had any suspicion of what was going to happen, the door opened, and in marched an enormous woman, as tall as a grenadier, with strongly marked eye-brows, a yellow complexion, and spectacles on her nose, who introduced herself as the "new governess." She then began to speak French to the two little girls, and finding that they were innocent of all knowledge of that language, she addressed herself to young Joseph in the same tongue. Such a thing had never happened to young Joseph before, and it astonished him so much that he let his pipe go out, and as they were drinking coffee at the time, he said, in order to say something: "Mother, fill the new teacher's cup."--Well, in a very short time the new governess ruled the whole house, but at last Mrs. Nüssler who had borne it bravely as long as she could, said: "Stop, this will never do. If any one is to rule here, it is I, for I am the 'nearest,' as Mrs. Behrens would say," and so the grenadier had to march.--Uncle Bräsig now tried what he could do, "so that the little round-heads might learn something." He engaged what he called a "capital teacher," and "one who is always merry, and who is not to be beat in playing the piano-forty."--He was right. One evening in winter a red-faced, smiling little woman arrived at Rexow, and she had not been ten minutes in the house before she fell upon the newly bought second-hand piano, and beat it and thumped it as if she were threshing out corn. When she had gone to bed, young Joseph opened the piano, but as soon as he found out that three of the strings were broken, he shut it again, and said: "What's to be done now?"--There was great fun and laughter in the house in those days, for the governess played and frisked about with the little girls, till Mrs. Nüssler came to the conclusion that her eldest daughter Lina was on the whole a more sensible person than her teacher. She wanted to know what the children were taught, and therefore begged Madmoiselle to draw out a plan of lessons, and let her see it. Next day Lina brought her a large sheet of paper containing the plan, which was as follows: German, French, orthography, geography, religion, Scripture history, and the other kind of history, and Bible natural history, and at the end came music, music, music, music.--"Ah well," said she to Joseph, "she may teach music as much as she likes, if only the religion is all right. What do you think, Joseph?"--"Oh," said Joseph, "it all depends upon circumstances!"--Nothing more would have been said, if Mrs. Nüssler had not accidentally found out from Lina that the time that ought to have been devoted to Scripture history, was spent in playing at ball, and soon afterwards when she happened to be upstairs at the time of the religious lesson, she heard peals of laughter from the school-room, and on going there to see what sort of religion was being taught, she found--Mademoiselle playing at Tig with the children. Mrs. Nüssler would have nothing to say to a religious lesson of that kind, and so Mademoiselle "Jack in the box" had to beat a retreat like her forerunner the grenadier.
The worst of it was that it was in the middle of the quarter, and Mrs. Nüssler complained of the children being always in her way, to which Joseph merely said: "Oh, what can I do?" but at the same time he began to study the Rostock newspaper very attentively, and one day he put down the paper, and desired Christian to get the phaeton ready. His wife was rather uneasy because she had no idea what he was going to do, but as soon as she saw that his mouth was even more drawn down to the left than usual, which was his way of giving a friendly smile, she said to herself: "Let him be, he has got some kindly thought in his head."--Three days later Joseph returned, bringing with him a shadowy lady of a certain age, and the news spread like wild-fire: "Only think, young Joseph has engaged a governess by himself this time!"--Bräsig came on the following Sunday and looked her over, he was pretty well satisfied with her, "but," he said, "mark my words, young Joseph, she has got nerves."--Bräsig had not only a great knowledge of horses, he had also a knowledge of men, and he was right. Mademoiselle had nerves, many nerves. The twins had to go about the house on tip-toe. Mademoiselle took Mina's ball away from her because she had once thrown it against her window by mistake, and locked the piano to prevent Lina playing, "Our cat has nine kittens," the only air which Miss "Jack in the box" had taught her.--
In course of time Mademoiselle had fits of rigidity in addition to her nerves, and Mrs. Nüssler had to rush and administer all sorts of reviving drops to her, and Frida and Caroline had to sit up with her at night, for one would have been afraid to do it alone. "I should send her away if I were you," said Uncle Bräsig, but Mrs. Nüssler was too kind-hearted to do that, she sent for the doctor instead.--Dr. Strump came from Rahnstädt, and when he had looked at the clenched teeth of the patient, he said it was a very interesting case, and explained it by saying that he had lately been studying "The night-side of human nature."--Young Joseph and his wife thought no evil, except that they had been obliged to get up in the night several times, but something else was to come.--One day when the doctor was there Caroline rushed down-stairs: "Mistress, Mistress, the illness is at its height. The doctor has been waving his hands before Mamselle's face, and now she's prophesying, and she's telling the truth too. She told me that I had a sweetheart."--"Heaven preserve me!" said Bräsig who happened to be there. "The young woman ought to be in an asylum!"--And then he followed Mrs. Nüssler upstairs.--After a little he came down again, and asked: "What do you say now, young Joseph?"--Joseph sat silently thinking for some time, at last he said: "It's no use, Bräsig."--"Joseph," said Bräsig, striding up and down as he spoke, "I advised you to send her away before, but now I say, don't send her away. I asked her what sort of rain we shall have to-morrow, and she answered in her sun-and-bulist state, that we should have a regular plump. If there is a plump tomorrow, take your perometer down from the wall--perometers are of no more use, and yours has been standing at 'set fair' for the last two years--and then you can hang her in its place, and so make the fortune of the whole neighbourhood."--Young Joseph made no reply, and when he saw how frightfully it rained the next day, he still said nothing, but pondered over the marvellous circumstance for three days in silence. The news, meanwhile, spread throughout the countryside that young Joseph had engaged a prophetess, and that she had prophesied the heavy rain which had fallen on the previous Saturday, and also that Caroline Kräuger and Mr. Farm-bailiff Bräsig should be married before the year was out.--Naturally Dr. Strump was not behind-hand in publishing the details of the interesting case he was attending, and before long Mrs. Nüssler's quiet house became the meeting-place of all the neighbourhood, every one going there either from curiosity or to study the case from a scientific point of view; and as Mrs. Nüssler would have nothing to do with it, and young Joseph would have nothing to do with it, Zachariah Bräsig took the case in hand when the doctor was not there, and conducted the visitors up-stairs to Madmoiselle's apartment, and explained the nature of somnambulism to them. Christian, the coach-man, held watch by Madmoiselle's bed, because he was so brave that he did not fear the devil himself, and Caroline and Frida were too frightened to remain in the room, even in company, and indeed they did not consider it a proper occupation for them, for they thought a somnambulist must be a very wicked person.--Amongst the visitors was the young Baron von Mallerjahn of Gräunenmur, who came every day to enquire scientifically into the affair, and who at last used to go up to see Madmoiselle without waiting for Bräsig. Mrs. Nüssler was very angry when she found out that he did so, and told Joseph that he ought to be present at the interviews, but her husband answered that Christian was there, and so there was no need of him. At last however Christian came down, and said that the young Baron had turned him out of the room because he smelt too strongly of the stable, and that made Mrs. Nüssler cry with anger, and if Bräsig had not appeared at that moment she would herself have ordered the Baron out of the house, but Bräsig of course undertook to do it for her. He therefore went up-stairs, and said politely, but firmly: "My lord, will you be so good as to look at the other side of the door?"--The Baron seemed to understand what was meant, for he smiled rather constrainedly, and said that he was just then in magnetic rapport with Mademoiselle. "What do you mean by a 'monetary report?'" said Bräsig, "we want none of your money here, nor your reports either; that's the reason that Christian was told to sit here."--Now Bräsig was, without knowing it, in magnetic rapport himself, for whenever he saw Mrs. Nüssler shed tears, it put him in a rage, so he now ended by saying angrily: "And now, Sir, I must beg of you to go at once."--The Baron was naturally put out at being addressed in such an unceremonious manner, and asked haughtily, if Bräsig knew that he was extremely rude.--"If you call that rude," cried Bräsig, seizing the Baron by the arm, "I'll soon show you something else."--The noise they made wakened Mademoiselle from her sleep, she started up off the sofa, and, seizing the Baron by the other arm, declared that she would remain there no longer; no one understood her except him, and she would go with him.--"That's the best thing to do," said Bräsig. "One ought always to speed the parting guest. Two flies at one blow!" he concluded, showing them down-stairs.
The Baron's carriage drove up to the door, and the Baron himself looked nervous and uncomfortable, but Mademoiselle was determined. "Well, well, what's to be done now?" said young Joseph as he watched the departure from the window.--"Young Joseph," said Bräsig as the carriage drove out of the yard, "it all depends upon circumstances, and it's hard to say. And, Mrs. Nüssler, let them be, the Baron will soon find out now how to manage his monetary report."