A Romance of Tompkins Square / 1891

by Thomas A. Janvier

Into this beautiful church it was that Gottlieb, led thither by his good angel, entered; and the devil—raging in the terrible but impotent fashion that is habitual with devils when they see slipping away from their snares the souls which they thought to win to wickedness—of course was forced to remain outside. But what feelings of keen repentance filled this poor sinning baker's heart within that holy place, what good resolves came to him, what light and refreshment irradiated and cheered his darkened, harried soul—all these are things which better may be suggested here than written out in full. For these things are so real, so sacred, and so beautiful with a heavenly beauty, that they may not lightly be used for decorative purposes in mere romance.

Let it suffice, then, to tell—for so is our poor human stuff put together that trivial commonplace facts often exhibit most searchingly the changes for good or for evil which have come to pass in our inmost souls—that Gottlieb, on returning to the Café Nürnberg, ate a prodigious dinner; and after his dinner, for the first time in a fortnight, smoked a thoroughly refreshing pipe.

Over his dinner and his pipe he was silent, manifesting, however, a sort of sheepishness and constraint that were not less strange in the eyes of Aunt Hedwig and Minna than was the sudden revival of his interest in tobacco and food. As he smoked, a pleasant thought came to him. When he had knocked the ashes from his pipe he ordered Minna, surlily, to bring him his hat and coat; he must pay a visit to that rascal Sohnstein, he said; and so went out. He left the two women lost in wonder; and Aunt Hed-wig, because of his characterization of her dear Sohnstein as a rascal, disposed to weep. And yet, somehow, they both felt that the storm was breaking, and that clear weather was at hand. There was nobody in the shop just then; and the two, standing behind the rampart of freshly-baked cakes that was high heaped up upon the counter, embraced each other and mingled tears, which they knew—by reason of the womanly instinct that was in them—were tears of joy.

And that very evening the prophecy of happiness that was in their joyful sorrow was happily fulfilled.

Gottlieb did not return to the Café Nürnberg until after nine o'clock. With him came Herr Sohnstein. They both were very grave and silent, yet both exhibited a most curious twinklesomeness in their eyes. Neither Aunt Hedwig nor Minna could make anything of their strange mood; and Aunt Hedwig was put to her trumps completely when she was sure that she saw her brother—who was whispering to Herr Sohnstein behind the pie-counter—poke the notary in the ribs. As to the joint chuckle at that moment of those two mysterious men there could be no doubt; she heard it distinctly! 14

Still further to Aunt Hedwig's surprise, for the Café Nürnberg never was closed before ten o'clock, and usually remained open much later, Gottlieb himself began to put up the shutters; and when this work was finished he came back into the shop and locked behind him the double front door. Almost as he turned the key there was a knock outside, as though somebody actually had been waiting in the street for the signal that the closing of the shutters gave.

"Another rascal would come in already, Sohn-stein," said Gottlieb, gruffly. "Open for him, but lock the door again. I must go up-stairs."

Gottlieb, with a queer smile upon his face, left the little back room; and a moment later Minna uttered a cry of surprise, as Herr Sohnstein unlocked the door and her own Hans entered the shop. What, she thought, could all these wonders mean? As for Aunt Hedwig, she had sunk down into her big armchair and her bright black eyes seemed to be fairly starting from her head.

Herr Sohnstein locked the door again, as he had been ordered to do, and then brought Hans through the shop and into the little back room. Hans evidently was not a party to the mystery, whatever the mystery might be. He looked at Minna as wonderingly as she looked at him, and he was distressingly ill at ease. But there was no time for either of them to ask questions, for as Hans entered the room from the shop, Gottlieb returned to it. In his hand Gottlieb held the brown old parchment on which the lebkuchen recipe was written; the smile had left his face; he was very pale. For a moment there was an awkward pause. Then Gottlieb, trembling a little as he walked, crossed the room to where Hans stood and placed the parchment in his hands. And it was in a trembling, broken voice that Gottlieb said:

"Hans, a most wicked man have I been. But my dead Minna has helped me, and here I give again to thee what I stole from thy chest—I who was a robber." Then Gottlieb covered his face with his hands, and presently each of his bony knuckles sparkled with a pendant tear.