A Romance of Tompkins Square / 1891

by Thomas A. Janvier

Whether the honey shall be brought to the boiling-point slowly or rapidly; whether it shall boil a long time or a short time; when and in what quantities the flour shall be added; how long the kneading shall last; in what size of earthen pot the dough shall be stored, and what manner of cover upon these pots best preserves the dough against the assaults of damp and mould; whether the pots shall be half-buried in the cool earth of the cellar or ranged on shelves to be freely exposed to the cool cellar air—all these several matters are enshrouded in a mystery that is penetrated only by the elect few of Nürnberg bakers by whom perfect lebkuchen is made. And the same is true of the Brunswick bakers, who call this rare compound honigkuchen, and of the makers of pferfferkuchen, as it is called by the bakers of Saxony.

Nor does the mystery end here. This first stage in the making of lebkuchen is but means to an end, and for the compassing of that end—the blending and the baking of the finished and perfect honey-cake—each master-baker has his own especial recipe, that has come down to him from some ancestral baker of rare parts, or that by his own inborn genius has been directly inspired. And so, whether the toothsome result be Nürnberger lebkuchen, or Brunsscheiger peppernotte, or Basler leckerly, the making of it is a mystery from first to last.

It was because of this mystery that the life of Gottlieb Brekel had been imbittered for nearly twenty years—ever since, in fact, his first essay in the compounding of Nürnberger lebkuchen had been made. He was but a young baker then: now he was an old one, and notwithstanding the guarded praise of friends and the partial approval of the public (notably of that portion of the public under the age of ten years that attended St. Bridget's Parochial School) he full well knew that his efforts through all these years to make, in New York, lebkuchen such as he himself had eaten when he was a boy, at home in Nürnberg, had been neither more nor less than a long series of failures.

In the hopeful days of his apprenticeship all had seemed so easy before him. Let him but have a little shop, and then a little capital wherewith to lay in his supply of honey, and the thing would be done! He had no recipe, it is true; for he was a baker not by heredity, but by selection. Yet from a wise old baker he had gleaned the knowledge of honey-cake making, and he believed strongly that from the pure fount of his own genius he could draw a formula for the making of lebkuchen so excellent that compared with it all other lebkuchen would seem tasteless. But these were the bright dreams of youth, which age had refused to realize.

In course of time the little shop became an accomplished fact; a very little shop it was in East Fourth Street. Capital came more slowly, and three several times, when a sum almost sufficient had been saved, was it diverted from its destined purpose of buying the honey without which Gottlieb could not make even a beginning in his triumphal lebkuchen career.

His first accumulation was swept away through the conquest of Ambition by Love. In this case Love was personified in one Minna Schaus—who was not by any means a typical sturdy German lass, with laughing looks and stalwart ways, but a daintily-finished, golden-haired maiden, with soft blue eyes full of tenderness, and a gentleness of manner that Gottlieb thought—and with more reason than lovers sometimes think things of this sort—was very like the manner of an angel. And for love of her Gottlieb forgot for a while his high resolves in regard to lebkuchen making; and on the altar of his affections—in part to pay for his modest wedding-feast, in part to pay for the modest outfit for their housekeeping over the bakery—the money laid aside for the filling of his honey-pots very willingly was offered up.

A second time were his honey-pots sacrificed, that the coming into the world of the little Minna might be made smooth. This, also, was a willing sacrifice; though in his heart of hearts Gottlieb felt a twinge of regret that his first-born was not a son, to whom the fame and fortune incident to the making of perfect lebkuchen might descend. But he was a philosopher in his way, and did not suffer himself to be seriously disconcerted by an accident that by no means was irreparable. As he smoked his long pipe that night, while the bread was baking, he said to himself, cheerily: "It is a girl. Yes, that is easy. Girls sprout everywhere; they are like grass. But a boy, and a boy who is to grow up into such a baker as my boy will be—ah, that is another matter. But patience, Gottlieb; all in good time." Then, when his third pipe was finished—which was his measure of time for the baking—he fetched out the sweet-smelling hot bread from the oven with his long peel, and set forth upon his round of delivery. And he whistled a mellow old Nürnberg air as he pushed his cart through the streets before him that frosty morning, and in his heart he thanked the good God who had sent him the blessings of a dear wife and a sweet little daughter and a growing trade.

And yet once more were his honey-pots sacrificed, and this time the sacrifice was sad indeed. From the day that the little Minna came into the world his own Minna, as in a little while was but too plain to him, began to make ready to leave it. As the weeks went by, the little strength that at first had come to her was lost again; the faint color faded from her cheeks, and left them so wan that through the fair skin the blue veins showed in most delicate tracery; and as her dear eyes ever grew gentler and more loving, the light slowly went out from them. So within the year the end came. In that great sorrow Gottlieb forgot his ambition, and cared not, when the bills were paid, that his honey-pots still remained unfilled. For the care of his home and of little Minna his good sister Hedwig came to him. Very drearily, for a long while, the work of the bakery went on.

But a strong man, stirred by a strong purpose, does not relinquish that purpose lightly; and the one redeeming feature of the life of many sorrows which in this world we all are condemned to live is that even the bitterest sorrow is softened by time. But for this partial relief our race no doubt would have been extinguished ages ago in a madness wrought of grief and rage.

Gottlieb's strong purpose was to make the best lebkuchen that baker ever baked. After a fashion his sorrow healed, as the flesh heals about a bullet that has gone too deep to be extracted by the surgeon's craft, and while it was with him always, and not seldom sent through all his being thrills of pain, he bore it hidden from the world, and went about his work again. Working comforted him. The baking of bread is an employment that is at once soothing and sustaining. As a man kneads the spongy dough he has good exercise and wholesome time for thought. While the baking goes on he may smoke and meditate. The smell of the newly-baked bread is a pleasant smell, and brings with it pleasant thoughts of many people well nourished in the eating of it. Moreover, there is no time in the whole twenty-four hours when a city is so innocent, so like the quiet honest country-side, as that time in the crisp morning when a baker goes his rounds.