Whoever has anything against shoemakers and does not know how to appreciate their excellence individually and generally, let him keep away from me. Whoever goes so far as to turn up his nose at them contemptuously because of their often curious appearance, their crooked legs, their hard, black paws, their crazy noses, their unkempt tufts of hair, is no good to me; if he is lost I shall offer no reward for his return. I treasure and love shoemakers, and above them all I value the worthy Master Anton Unwirrsch, the father of Hans Jakob Nikolaus Unwirrsch. Alas, it was not long after those vesper bells had given greeting to his first and only born that the evening bells of his own day on earth began to ring. Yet there are so many threads of his life that run on into his son's that we cannot omit a description of his personality and being. Physically, as we already know, he stood not very firmly on his feet, but mentally he was straight and strong enough and could cope with many a man who thought himself far superior. All the relics of his hidden life show that he did his utmost to make up for the defects of a neglected education, that he had a thirst for knowledge—a very keen thirst. And even though he never learnt to spell quite correctly he yet possessed a poetic soul, like his celebrated fellow-craftsman from the "Mouse-trap" in Nuremberg, and read as much as he possibly could. Moreover, what he read he usually understood too; and if in some things he did not find the meaning that the author had intended, he got another meaning out of it or read it into it which belonged entirely to him alone and with which the author might very often be well content. Although he loved his trade and did not neglect it in any way it was no gold mine to him, and he remained a poor man. Golden dreams, however, his occupation did bring him, and all occupations that can do that are good and make those who practise them happy. Anton Unwirrsch saw the world from his cobbler's stool almost exactly as Hans Sachs had once seen it, but he did not become so famous. He left a little book in close, fine handwriting which his widow first kept like a sacred relic in the depths of her chest, together with her hymn book, bridal wreath and a little black box of which we shall hear more later on. As she would have a sacred relic, the mother delivered the little book over to her son and he gave it the place of honor in his library between the Bible and Shakespeare, although in poetry and content it ranks a little below these two.
Auntie Schlotterbeck and Master Grünebaum had a vague suspicion of the existence of this manuscript, but only the poet's wife had definite knowledge of it. To her it was the most marvelous thing that could be imagined. For did it not rhyme "like the hymn book," and had not her husband written it? That was far beyond anything that the neighborhood could bring to light.
To the son these leaves, sewed together, were a dear legacy and a touching sign that even among the lowly there is an eternal striving upward out of the depths and darkness to the heights, to the light, to beauty.
The harmless, formless outpourings of shoemaker Unwirrsch's soul were naturally devoted to the phenomena of nature, to the home, his handicraft, and certain great facts of history, chiefly the deeds and heroes of the War of Liberation which had just thundered by. They testified to thought that, in all these directions, was sometimes charmingly simple-hearted, sometimes lofty. There was a little humor mixed up in it, but it was the pathetic that was most prominent and, indeed, most often brought forth the familiar smile. The worthy Master Anton had experienced so much thunder and lightning, so many hailstorms, fires and floods, had seen so many Frenchmen, Rhenish Confederates, Prussians, Austrians and Russians marching past his house that it was no wonder if now and then he, too, tried his hand a little at lightning and thunder and smiting dead. This did not cause any enmity between him and his neighbors, for he remained what he was, a "good fellow," and when he died he was mourned not alone by his wife, his brother-in-law Grünebaum and Auntie Schlotterbeck; no, all Kröppel Street knew and said that a good man had passed away and that it was a pity.
He had waited long and yearningly for the birth of a son. He often pictured to himself what he could and would make of him. He transferred all his earnest striving for knowledge to him; the son should and must attain to what his father could not. The thousand insurmountable obstacles which life had thrown in the way of Master Anton should not halt the career of the future Unwirrsch. He should find his course clear, and no door of wisdom or of education should be closed to him by life's labors and hardships.
Thus did Anton dream, and one year after another of his married life passed. A daughter was born, but she died soon after; and then for a long time there came nothing, and then—then at last came Johannes Jakob Nikolaus Unwirrsch, whose entrance into the world has already given us the material for a number of the foregoing pages and whose later sufferings, joys, adventures, and travels—in short, whose destinies will form the greater part of this book.
We saw the brother-in-law and uncle, Grünebaum, lose his slipper, we saw and heard the tumult of the women, made the acquaintance of Mrs. Tiebus and Auntie Schlotterbeck;—we saw, finally, the two brothers-in-law sitting in the storeroom and saw the dusk creeping in after the eventful sunset. Master Anton lived one more year after the birth of his son and then died of pneumonia. Fate treated him as she does many another: she gave him his share of joy in his hopes, and refused him their fulfillment, which, indeed, never can catch up with fleet-winged hope itself.
Johannes screamed lustily in the hour of his father's death, but not for his father. But Mrs. Christine cried much for her husband and for a long time could not be quieted either by Auntie Schlotterbeck's words of consolation or by the philosophic admonitions of the wise Master Nikolaus Grünebaum. The latter promised his dying brother-in-law to do his best for those who were left and to stand by them in all the crises of life according to his best ability. Once more Anton Unwirrsch struggled for air, but the air for him was too full of flames of fire; he sighed and died. The doctor wrote his death certificate; Mrs. Kiebike, the layer-out, came and washed him, his coffin was ready at the right time, a goodly train of neighbors and friends accompanied him to the churchyard, and in the corner, beside the stove, sat Mrs. Christine, who held her child on her lap and gazed with fixed, red and swollen eyes at the low black work-stool and the low black work-table and who still could not believe that her Anton would never again sit on the one and in front of the other. Auntie Schlotterbeck cleared away the empty cake plates, bottles and glasses which had been placed, full, before the mourners, the pall-bearers and the condoling neighbors to give them strength in their sorrow. Hans Jakob Nikolaus Unwirrsch crowed with childish joy and stretched out his tiny hands longingly toward the shining glass globe above his father's table, on which the sun now fell and which had shed such a remarkable lustre on Anton Unwirrsch's world of thought. The influence of this globe was long to continue. The mother had become so accustomed to its light that she could not dispense with it even after her husband's death; it shone on far into the son's youth, Johannes heard many a tale of his father's worth and excellence by its light, and gradually in the son's mind the image of his father was joined inseparably to the brilliance of this globe.
Chapter II
The ancients thought that it was to be considered a great piece of good fortune if the gods allowed a man to be born in a famous town. But as this good fortune has not fallen to the share of many famous men, such towns as Bethlehem, Eisleben, Stratford, Kamenz, Marbach, not having formerly been particularly brilliant spots in the minds of men, it probably makes little difference to Hans Unwirrsch that he first saw the light of the world in a little town called Neustadt. There are not a few towns and townlets of the same name, but they have not quarreled with one another for the honor of counting our hero among their citizens. Johannes Jakob Nikolaus Unwirrsch did not make his birthplace more famous in the world.