And then? No one can say what followed then; but when Hans Unwirrsch came home from the church his mother was dead and all who saw her said that she must have had a happy death.
Summary of Chapters XIII, XIV, XV and XVI
[As she had desired, Frau Christine was buried beside her husband. Those of her belongings that Hans wanted to keep Auntie Schlotterbeck took into her care; some of the rest were given to Uncle Grünebaum and some were sold. Hans rented the little house to a mason on the condition that in every respect Auntie Schlotterbeck should be recognized as its keeper and his agent.
After having thus arranged his affairs Hans bade farewell to Neustadt for the second time and prepared to enter on the career of a tutor as he had failed to find an unoccupied parish. He accepted a position on the estate of a certain Mr. von Holoch, whose two children, a son and a daughter, he was to bring up and instruct. These children gave him no particular difficulty; he easily won, too, the regard of the jovial master of the house whose interests were limited to hunting and agriculture, and the plump, good-humored and industrious housewife took care that his outward person increased in size. He was also good friends with the vicar and the manager as well as with all the other inhabitants of the estate and the village. He was temporarily embarrassed only when the housekeeper fell violently in love with him and finally behaved in such a way that she was obliged to leave the estate. Against his will and for no fault of his own Hans too, found that he must go. A rich aunt from whom a legacy might some day be expected appeared on the scene and Hans displeased her as much as he had pleased the housekeeper. She declared the tutor to be an unpolished boor who had never been properly brought up himself, and promised to have her nephew, Erich, educated to become a man of real culture, in the little capital where she was one of the bigger fish in the social sea. Mr. von Holoch and his wife were very sorry to see Hans go and, in their own way, gave him a touching farewell.
THE NIGHTLY ROUND
From the Painting by Karl Spitzweg
PERMISSION FRANZ HANFSTAENGL, N.Y.
By means of a newspaper advertisement Hans found a new position in the house of a well-to-do manufacturer who made some kind of evil-smelling stuff in Kohlenau near Magdeburg. When Hans arrived he found the region flat, the house, which stood near the factory, bleak and inartistic, its inhabitants industrious and matter-of-fact. The three boys who were entrusted to his care were destined to become good business men. Under these conditions life weighed heavily on the young man of God and, as once before in the government official's house, he longed for a freer, broader, more beautiful world which he believed he might be able to find in the metropolis. But his contract with his employer bound him for three long years and Hans would probably not have got away before the time was up if, in the autumn, an epidemic, resembling hunger-typhus, had not broken out among the workmen, and with it a strike. Hans expressed opinions in regard to this matter which his employer considered preposterous and disgraceful; in fact, he even openly took the part of the workmen and, in consequence, received notice to leave at Easter. Meanwhile his position in the house became more and more unbearable, his efforts to find a new situation were unsuccessful and one February afternoon our hero, sad and depressed, sat on a stone beside the road that led through a little clump of evergreens near the factory. He had no idea how near the turn in his fate was, which, at that very moment, was approaching at a trot in the shape of an elderly, somewhat red-nosed rider with a military moustache.
It was Lieutenant Götz, who greeted Hans characteristically and sought to explain his unexpected appearance by taking out of his pocket the newspaper in which Hans had advertised for a position. Then he asked Hans to tell him about his life since their meeting in the "Post-horn" in Windheim, and finally declared that he was delighted to find things going so abominably with the candidate. This made it possible for him to prove himself a rescuer in case of need. His brother, Privy Councillor Götz, was looking for a tutor and the lieutenant, after seeing Hans' advertisement while reading the paper in a restaurant, had immediately made his way to Kohlenau with the aid of the railway, his feet, and a horse. He now gave Hans his brother's address and asked him to write to the latter that he, the lieutenant, recommended Hans. He advised him moreover to write "official business" on the envelope so that it should not fall into the hands of his brother's wife. Then the old soldier bade him a short goodby.
Hans went home busy with his thoughts, wondering at the way the past had joined itself to the present and at the prospects that opened in the future. The same evening he wrote till two o'clock composing a letter to the Privy Councillor which the postman carried away the next morning. Two weeks of torturing waiting now passed. But on the twenty-eighth of February the postman handed him the longed-for registered letter as he was on his way home in the pouring rain from the church which lay an hour's walk away. The tutor was requested to present himself personally and punctually to the Privy Councillor at fifteen minutes to twelve on the eighth of March.
At the prospect of Hans' departure the attitude of the manufacturer and his family became more conciliatory and the parting did not take place without emotion. Hans left his trunk behind him, as the bookkeeper had promised to send it to him wherever he might be, and, armed only with a light traveling bag, he set forth to meet his new fate. Once more to his astonishment he found the lieutenant sitting on the same stone in the clump of evergreens on which he himself had been sitting when the lieutenant surprised him before, and together they continued their way on foot. Behind the wood, in the village of Plankenhausen, they stopped for breakfast, after which the lieutenant thought it advisable to take a carriage which brought them to the town of ——. From there they took the train for some distance but got out again at the last station before they reached the great metropolis, for the lieutenant maintained that it was better for Hans to enter his new life on foot because his mind would thus have the opportunity to calm itself and because he, the lieutenant, had another story which he could tell best on the march.