Although she was not older than Mrs. Christine Unwirrsch, Auntie Schlotterbeck had always been Auntie Schlotterbeck. No one in Kröppel Street knew her by any other name and she was as well known in Kröppel Street as "Old Fritz," emperor "Napoleum" and old Blücher, although she bore no other resemblance to these three famous heroes than that she took snuff like the great Prussian king, and had an aquiline nose like the "Corsican ravager." As to any resemblance to Marshal "Forward!" that would indeed have been difficult to find.
Auntie Schlotterbeck had formerly also been a washerwoman but she had long since been mustered out and managed to make a wretched living by spinning, knitting stockings and similar work. The city magistrates had granted her a scanty sum as poor-relief, and Master Anton, whose very distant relative she was, had, out of kindness, let her have the little room which she occupied in his house, for a very low price. In reality she would deserve to have a whole chapter in this book devoted to her, for she had a gift which not everybody can claim; to her those who had died had not passed away from the earth, she saw them walking through the streets, she met them in the marketplaces looking like living persons and unexpectedly ran into them at the street corners. There was not the slightest tinge of uncanniness connected with this to her; she spoke of it as of something perfectly natural, usual, and there was absolutely no difference to her between the mayor Eckerlein who had died in the year 1769 and who passed her in front of the "Lion" pharmacy in his wig and red velvet coat, and his grandchild to whom in 1820 this same "Lion" pharmacy belonged and who was just looking out of the window without being able to take any notice of his august grandfather.
At last even Auntie Schlotterbeck's acquaintances ceased to regard her gift with any feeling of "creepiness." The incredulous ones stopped smiling at it and the credulous—of whom there were a good number—no longer blessed themselves and clapped their hands together over their heads. This high distinction had no detrimental influence on the character of the good little woman herself. Auntie Schlotterbeck took no undue pride in her strange gift of sight; she looked upon it as an undeserved favor from God and remained humbler than many other people who did not see nearly as much as the elderly spinster in Kröppel Street.
As regards appearance, Auntie Schlotterbeck was of medium height but she stooped very much when she walked and poked her head forward. Her clothes hung on her like things that were not in their right place, and her nose, as we have already heard, was very sharp and very hooked. This nose would have made a disagreeable impression if it had not been for her eyes. They made up for all the sins her nose committed. They were remarkable eyes and, as we know, saw remarkable things too. They remained clear and bright even when she was very, very old,—young, blue eyes in an old, old dried-up face. Hans Unwirrsch never forgot them although later he looked into eyes much more beautiful still.
In a naïve way Auntie Schlotterbeck was devoted to learning. She had tremendous respect for scholarship and especially for theological learning; little Hans owed her his first introduction to all those branches of learning which he later mastered more or less. She could have told fairy-tales to the Grimm brothers and when the wicked queen drove the golden needle into her hated stepdaughter's head Hans Unwirrsch felt the point way down to his diaphragm.
Hans and Auntie Schlotterbeck were inseparable companions during the first years of the boy's life. From early in the morning till late in the evening the seer of spirits had to fill his mother's place; nothing that concerned him was done without her advice and assistance; she satisfied his hunger for many things, but it was through her that he learnt to know hunger for many other things. Uncle Grünebaum growled often enough when he came to visit them; nothing good could come of such companionship with women, he said, the devil take them, one and all, odd and even; crochets, whimseys and spirit-imaginings were of no use to any man and only made him an addle-pate and a muddlehead. "It's nonsense! That's what I say and I'll stick to it."
In answer to such attacks Auntie Schlotterbeck merely shrugged her shoulders and Hans crept closer to her side. Growling, as he had come, Uncle Grünebaum departed;—he considered himself exceedingly practical and clear-headed and snorted contempt through his nose without stopping to think that even the best pipe stem may become clogged.
Hans Unwirrsch was a precocious child and learnt to speak almost before he learnt to walk; reading came as easily to him as playing. Auntie Schlotterbeck understood the difficult art well and only stumbled over words that were all too long or all too foreign. She liked to read aloud and with a whining pathos which made the greatest impression on the child. Her library was composed mainly of the Bible, hymn book and a long series of popular almanacs which followed one another without a break from the year 1790 and each of which contained a touching, a comic or a thrilling story besides a treasury of home and secret remedies and a fine selection of humorous anecdotes. For the lively imagination of a child an infinitely rich world was hidden in these old numbers, and spirits of all sorts rose out of them, smiled and laughed, grinned, threatened and led the young soul alternately through thrills of awe and ecstasies. When the rain pelted against the panes, when the sun shone into the room, when thunderstorms reached across the roofs with black arms of cloud and hurled their red flashes above the town, when the thunder rolled and the hail pattered and bounded on the street pavement, in some way all these things came to be connected with the figures and scenes in the almanacs and the heroes and heroines of the stories strode through good and bad weather, perfectly clear, plain and distinct, past dreamy little Hans who had laid his head in the old spirit-seer's lap. The story of "good little Jasper and pretty little Annie" struck a chord in his heart which continued to ring through Hans' whole life; but the "book of books," the Bible, made a still greater impression on the boy. The simple grandeur of the first chapters of Genesis cannot but overwhelm children as well as grown people, the poor in spirit as well as the millionaires of intellect. Infinitely credible are these stories of the beginnings of things and credible they remain even though every day it is more clearly proven that the world was not created in seven days. At Auntie Schlotterbeck's feet Hans lost himself with shuddering delight in the dark abyss of chaos: and the earth was without form and void;—till God divided the light from the darkness and the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. When sun, moon and stars began their dance and God let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, then he breathed freely again; and when the earth brought forth grass and herb and the tree yielding fruit, when the water, the air and the earth brought forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life and every winged fowl after his kind, then he clapped his little hands and felt that he stood on firm ground once more. The manner in which God breathed the breath of life into Adam was perfectly clear to him and of incontrovertible truth, whereas the first critical doubt arose in the child's mind when the woman was created out of the man's rib, for "that must hurt."
But following the simple stories of Paradise, of Cain and Abel, of the flood, came the numbering of the tribes with the long difficult names. These names were real bushes of thorns for reader and listener; they were pitfalls into which they pitched heels over head, they were stones over which they stumbled and fell on their noses. Ever again they untangled themselves, rose to their feet and toiled on with reverential solemnity: but the sons of Gomer are these: Ashkenez, Riphath and Togarmah; and the sons of Javan are: Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim and Dodanim.