At first, all seemed very good-natured, but, as a whole, there wasn't much fraternity. On one side it was all right, the young gentlemen among the grandees, and those from the country, were very brotherly towards the pretty little burghers' daughters; but the young ladies from the country, and the grandees' daughters, were positively determined not to fraternize with the burghers' sons, and the first open quarrel began with Malchen Pomuchelskopp. The shoemaker, the wit of the Reformverein, who was a burgher's son in Rahnstadt, asked her to dance, and she thanked him, but she was engaged; and then she sat there, and waited for Fritz Triddelsitz or Herr Süssmann, or some other helping angel, whom providence might send to dance the next hop waltz with her. But there were no angels of the kind ready, and she remained sitting. The rogue of a shoemaker cracked his jokes over it, and at last said, quite aloud, that if the distinguished ladies would not dance with them, they ought not to let the distinguished gentlemen dance with their women-folks, for they had not come there to look at each other. And then the storm broke upon the poor, pretty, innocent, little burghers' daughters, and their brothers and lovers attacked them: "Fika, don't you dance any more with that long-legged apothecary's son!" and "Dürt, wait, I shall tell mother!" and "Stine, another dance with the advocate, and we are parted!" So it went through the hall, and at last it came to Father Pomuchelskopp's ears, how the trouble originated, and it disturbed him so much that he went to Malchen, and represented to her in the most pathetic terms the mischief she had done. The shoemaker, he said, was a very worthy young man, he was counted equal to any ten in the Reformverein, on account of his terrible wit, and it must be made up, and in spite of all her opposition Father Pomuchelskopp took his educated daughter upon his arm, and led her through the hall to the shoemaker, and said it was a great mistake, his daughter would consider it a special honor to dance with such a distinguished member of the Reformverein. And, behold! the shoemaker and Malchen were dancing together!
Father Pomuchel had now, so to speak, sacrificed his first born upon the altar of fraternity, but it did not avail much, the discordant elements would not harmonize. Uncle Bräsig was doing his utmost, on the other side, he puffed about in his brown dress-coat, introduced Herr von So and So to the wife of Thiel the joiner, and compelled himself to walk arm-in-arm, about the hall, with his worst enemy in the Reformverein, the tailor Wimmersdorf, and at last, before everybody, gave the wife of Johann Meinswegens, the dyer, a couple of fraternity kisses on her red face; but it was a hopeless task, what could one man accomplish, though with the best will in the world? "Herr Schultz," he said, at last, quite worn out with his labors, "when it comes to the eating and drinking, I hope we may be a little more brotherly; the dancing only seems to bring us farther apart."
But even the eating and drinking did not help the matter; the people of rank sat at one end of the table, the burghers at the other; at one end they drank champagne, at the other a frightful tipple, which Grammelin sold, with the greatest impudence, as fine red wine, at twelve shillings the bottle. The shoemaker, indeed, was invited by Pomuchelskopp to be his guest at table, he sat by Malchen, and Father Pomuchel filled his glass assiduously; the dyer, Meinswegens, had sat down with his wife between two proprietors, and ordered "Panschamber," for he had filled his pocket with four-groschen pieces; but when he went to pay he became aware that he had made a mistake, in the twilight, for he brought out a handful of dyer's tickets. Bräsig had seated himself between a couple of the dearest little burghers' daughters, whom he treated in such a fatherly way that the Frau Pastorin, if she had seen it, would not have given him a good word for a week, and Gottlieb would certainly have preached him a sermon; but what good did it all do? Grammelin's sour wine did not suit well with his champagne, and so at supper they were farther asunder than ever.
"Herr Schultz," said Bräsig to his old friend, who sat opposite, "now it is time to play our last trump, you speak to Herr Süssmann, I will tell David Berger."
Herr Schultz went round to Herr Süssmann. "Have you your song-books ready?"
"Oh, yes."
"Go ahead, then! Now is the time!"
Herr Süssmann distributed the songbooks, while Bräsig went up to David Berger, and inquired:
"Herr Berger, do you know that air of Schiller's:
"'Schwester mit das Leinwand mieder,
Bruder in das Ordensband?'"