“Then take care, you Nelke (Pink) you—or I shall have to pluck you!”
He then turned and left the poor Pink in a crushed state—but richer by a golden lesson—leaning against the wall.
Bismarck wore a long yellowish-gray overcoat, which to this day is called in his house the “dyke coat,” as he was accustomed to put it on when he visited the dyke, for which purpose it had done long and faithful service. In Fritz Reuter’s “Journey to Constantinople” the Commerce Councillor Schwofel says:—“In all Eisenach there are only three white hats; His Royal Highness wears one when he is there; Mr. O’Kelly wears the second; and I wear the third. Certainly there are plenty more white hats in the place, but these are the most important.” We might say here that Berlin in those days only contained three yellow overcoats; Bismarck wore one of these; the immortal Baron von Hertefeld wore the second, until he died, the last of his memorable race, as Hereditary Grand Huntsman, at Cleve, in 1867; and the author of this book the third. There might be many more yellow coats in Berlin, but these were the most important.
Bismarck very often, as did many members of the conservative party, visited the office of the New Prussian Gazette, in the Dessauer-Strasse, No. 5, to learn the news. He was one of those, however, who always brought more than he carried away. Bismarck is an admirable narrator, especially of anecdotes, which he used to point with epigrammatic skill; the under-current of little traits of malice are generally invested with a dose of good humor, so that the subject of the stories were obliged to laugh themselves. The Napoleonist Duc de Persigny would no doubt have laughed had he heard Bismarck in those days. Fialin de Persigny at that time was intrusted with a political mission in Berlin, which he no doubt carried through to the greatest satisfaction of the higher powers; but he exhibited such disinvolture in the circles of the court society, and so naïve an admiration for female beauty, that a number of tales passed current at his expense. Bismarck’s mode of narration was only tinged with good humor in the majority of cases, not in all; he could be exceedingly peppery, and could give vent to severe sarcasms, and shoot off arrows which pierced through and through.
He was, however, not only a teller of anecdotes in the editorial room of the New Prussian Gazette; he supported the paper he had contributed to found with original articles. These were mostly written at the great round table where so many distinguished men have taken their seats, from Von Radowitz and Bethmann-Hollweg to Count Arnim, Pernice, Stahl, Von Gerlach, and Huber; and he wrote in his peculiar firm, but high and compact style. Sometimes he rushed into the room with hasty greeting, and stood at the high desk, retaining his hat and gloves in his left hand, and threw some lines swiftly on to paper. “Put the national motto to these,” he would exclaim to the editor-in-chief, and ran off with another salutation. He was always full of life and activity.
After the close of this session, on the 25th of February, 1850, he returned for a short time to Schönhausen, and in the following April we discover him again in Erfurt, at the Union Parliament. He had, as we know, been opposed from the very beginning to these attempts at union; they were not, in his firm opinion, fraught with any fortunate omen to Prussia. The very next few months proved that his acute insight and his Prussian patriotism had not erred. We need not therefore be astonished that he gave vent to his patriotic sorrow at the Erfurt project, and the humiliations contemplated to Prussia thereby, in unmeasured language. He closed one of his speeches of that time with the following sentences:—
“It has been a painful feeling for me to see here Prussians, and not nominal Prussians only, who advocate this constitution, who have defended it with ardor. It would have been a humiliating feeling to me, and so it would have been to thousands and thousands of my fellow-countrymen, to see the representatives of princes whom I honor in their own sphere, but who are not my liege-lords, clothed with supreme power; a feeling the bitterness of which could not be diminished by seeing the seats we occupy decked with colors—never those of the German empire—but which for two years have been the colors of rebellion and of the barricades, colors worn in my native land by the democrat alone, except when in sorrowful obedience by the soldier. Gentlemen! If you make no more concessions than are contained in this constitution to the Prussian—ancient Prussian spirit—call it obstinate Prussian feeling if you choose—I do not believe it will be realized; and if you endeavor to force this constitution on this Prussian spirit, you will find it to be a Bucephalus, who bears his accustomed lord and rider with daring joy, but who will cast the unwelcome Sunday rider with his black-red-gold harness to the earth. I find one comfort against these eventualities in the firm conviction that no long time will elapse ere the parties to this constitution will stand, as, in the fable of Lafontaine, the two doctors stood by the patient whose corpse they were abandoning. The one said, ‘He is dead, I said so from the beginning!’—the other, ‘Had he followed my advice, he would have been alive now.’”
The further debates of the Erfurt Parliament gave him leisure enough, but this leisure brought no vigor with it, for the impression of a great political blunder sat heavy on the souls of Bismarck and his political partisans.
Bismarck wished to reinvigorate himself by a thorough hunting-party; he conferred with the Privy Councillor Oppermann, one of the “mighty hunters” of Prussia; this gentleman joined him with enthusiasm, and they communicated through the Oberforstmeister von Wedell, in Schleusingen, to obtain a woodcock foray with the famous shot Oberförster Klingner. Bismarck and Oppermann left Erfurt one morning together. At the first stage the travellers refreshed themselves at Arnstadt, as keen sportsmen, thinking nothing of the caddish opinions of the day, by a plentiful breakfast at eight o’clock, of delicate groundlings, and drank 1811 Bocksbeutel therewith. At the succeeding stations they whetted their appetites with trout, and drank beer with them, as the nectar of 1811 would allow no other wines to attract the palate. On their arrival in Schleusingen at 3 P.M., they had more trout and beer, then an interview and arrangements with the Oberförster, and in the evening more trout, which Oppermann ate with wine sauce, Bismarck remaining true to beer despite of urgent dissuasions. At night, about 12 o’clock, the Oberförster made his appearance with a keeper, to take the gentlemen off to the forest. Bismarck, however, was in a very lamentable plight; the mixture of fish and beer did not suit his constitution, and he was in a feverish state. He was advised to have some peppermint and stop in bed, but it was in vain; the keen sportsman was not afraid of stomach-ache; he was soon dressed, and away they went. Oppermann fired and killed a bird, but Bismarck returned home with nothing. He had put up two woodcocks, but at the decisive moment he fired both times at the wrong instant. The keeper showed him another woodcock, but Bismarck was unfit for any further exertion; he returned to Schleusingen and went to bed. By eleven o’clock the mischief was ended by some strong grog, and the sportsmen then went by the express coach over the hills, and arrived very merrily in Erfurt by the evening. Bismarck, however, has never taken beer upon trout since.