Seed-time and Harvest: A Novel

by Fritz Reuter

"But, Moses, have you no anxiety, when everything seems going to destruction? You are well known to be a rich man."

"Well, I am not afraid; my Blümchen came and whispered to me, and David came,--he trembled like that,--and said, 'Father, what shall we do with our money?' 'Do with it?' said I, 'do as we have done. Lend, where it is safe, do business where it is safe; we can be "people" too, if it is necessary. Let your beard grow, David,' I said, 'the times require it.' 'Well, and when other times come?' he asked me. 'Then you can cut it off again,' I said, 'the times will not require it then.'"

The talk then turned upon Axel, and his difficulties, and the fact that money and credit were nowhere to be had, and there was much to say on that point, for if credit fell property must fall with it, and many a one would not be able to keep his estate. And when Moses was gone the two old farmers sat together through the evening, with the Frau Pastorin, and the talk wandered sadly, hither and thither, and the Frau Pastorin clasped her hands, once and again. Over the wicked world, and, for the first time, thanked her Creator that her pastor had been taken away before these evil times, and had not lived to see such unchristian behavior; and Habermann felt like a man who has given up a fine business, which had grown very dear to him, and now sees his successor going to destruction. Bräsig, however, did not allow himself to be dismayed; he held up his head, and said these agitations, which were spreading over the whole world, were not merely the result of human invention, our Lord had his hand in the business as much as ever; at least. He had allowed it, and after the storm the air would be clear again. "And, Karl," he added,--"I say nothing about you, Frau Pastorin,--but if I may advise you, Karl, you should come with me, tomorrow evening, to Grammelin's, for we are not mere rebels, and do you know how it seems to me? Just as it is in a stormy day; if you stand in the house and look out, you shudder and shrink, but once out in the midst of the rain, you scarcely notice it."

So Bräsig attended the Reformverein at Rahnstadt, and every evening came back to the house, and told what had happened there. One evening, he came home later than usual: "They have gone crazy, today, Karl, and I have drank a couple of glasses more beer than usual, merely on account of the great importance of the matter. You see, the day-laborers have all become members of the union, and why not? we are all brothers. And the cursed fools have been planning that the whole limits of the town of Rahnstadt must be measured over again, and cut up into equal sections, and every one is to have just so much land, and every one is to have the right to cut down a beech-tree, from the town forest, for the winter; then there will be regular equality among men. Then all who owned land got up; they were for equality, but they wished to keep their property, and Kurz made a long speech about fields and meadows, and introduced the stadtbullen into them; and when he had finished they reviled him for an aristocrat, and turned him out. And then the tailor, Wimmersdorf, stepped up, and discoursed about the freedom of the trades, and the other tailors attacked him, and belabored him unmercifully, they wanted equality, they said, but they must have guilds for all that. And a young man got up, and asked, mockingly, how it should be with the tailoresses? Should they be admitted to the guilds, or not? And the old master tailors would have nothing of the kind, and then the young people declared themselves for the tailoresses, and turned out the old tailors, and there was a great uproar outside; and, in the hall, Rector Baldrian made a long, long speech, in which there was a great deal about the emanzipulation--or something else--of the female sex, and he made the proposition, that if the master tailors would not admit the tailoresses into their guild, the tailoresses should establish a guild of their own, for they were as good human sisters as any other guild; and that was passed, and the tailoresses are a guild now, and I was told, as I was going out, the tailoresses would be out to-morrow, in white dresses, with their forewomen at the head. Karl, that old, yellow old maid who goes by here every day, that they always call a Tartar, should lead them to the rector's house, and thank him, and in token of gratitude for his speech should present him with a woolen under-jacket and drawers, on a cushion."

"Bräsig! Bräsig!" exclaimed Habermann, "what nonsense you are talking! One would think you had nobody above you, and that you could decide everything for yourselves."

"Why not, Karl? Who is to hinder us? We make our resolutions, as well as we know how, and if nothing comes of it, why, nothing comes of it; and nothing ever will come of it, in my opinion, for you see, Karl, the whole story comes to one point; all will have something, and nobody will give up anything."

"So it is, to be sure, Zachary, and I do not think, in this little city, there will be much harm done, for one party will always oppose the other; but, just think, if the day-laborers, in the country, should get the idea of dividing the estates, what would become of us then?"

"Eh, Karl, but they won't do it!"

"Bräsig, it lies deep in human nature, this desire to call a little bit of our earth one's own, and they are not the worst men who care the most for it. Look around you! When the mechanic has laid up something, then he buys himself a little garden, a little field, and has his pleasure as well as his profit in it, and the laboring man in the city may do the same, for he has the possibility; and for that reason, I do not believe the discontent of the laborers, here in the city, is of much consequence. But it is different with the laborers in the country; they have no property, and, with all their industry and frugality, can never acquire any. If these opinions should spread among them, and ignorant men should attempt to carry them into effect, you would see, the consequences would be bad. Yes," he cried, "at first, it would begin merely among the bad masters, but who will be security that it shall not extend to the good also?"

"Karl, you may be right, Karl, for this evening Kurz told me,--that is to say, before he was turned out,--that, last Sunday, a couple of Gurlitz laborers used very singular expressions at his counter."