In later life this period of travel was a favorite topic of conversation with my father, and likewise with my mother, who ordinarily assumed a rather indifferent attitude toward the favorite themes of my father. That she made an exception in this case was due in part to the fact that during his journeyings my father had written to his young wife many "love letters," which as letters it was my mother's chief delight to ridicule, so long as she lived. "For I would have you know, children," she was wont to say, "I still have your father's love letters; one always keeps such charming things. One of these I even know by heart, at least the beginning. The letter came from Eisleben, and in it your father wrote to me: 'I arrived here this afternoon and have found very good quarters. Also for the horse, whose neck and shoulders are somewhat galled. However, I will not write you today about that, but about the fact that this is the place where Martin Luther was born on the 10th of November, 1483, nine years before the discovery of America.' There you have your father as a lover. You see, he would have been qualified to publish a Letter Writer."
All this was said by my mother not only with considerable seriousness, but also, unfortunately, with bitterness. It always grieved her that my father, much as he loved her, had never shown the slightest familiarity with the ways of tenderness.
The travels, which were kept up for nine months, were finally directed eastward toward the mouth of the Oder. Shortly before Christmas my father set out by stage coach, to save his horse from the hardships of winter travel, and when he arrived in Swinemünde the thermometer stood at 15° below zero, Fahrenheit. The cognac in his bottle was frozen to a lump of ice. He was so much the more warmly received by the widow Geisler, who, inasmuch as her husband had died the previous year, desired to sell her apothecary's shop as quickly as possible. And the sale was made. In the letter announcing the conclusion of the transaction was this passage: "We now have a new home in the province of Pomerania, Pomerania, of which false notions are frequently held; for it is really a splendid province and much richer than the Mark. And where the people are rich is the best place to live. Swinemünde itself is, to be sure, unpaved, but sand is better than bad pavement, where the horses are always having something the matter with their insteps. Unfortunately the transfer is not to be made for six months, which I regret. But I must be doing something again, must have an occupation once more."
Three days after the arrival of this letter he was home again himself. We were dragged out of bed, heavy with sleep, and called upon to rejoice that we were to go to Swinemünde.
To me the word represented but a strange sound….
When we arrived in Swinemünde, in the summer of 1827, it seemed an ugly hole, and yet, on the other hand, a place of very rare charm, for, in spite of the dullness of the majority of its streets, it had that peculiar liveliness that commerce and navigation produce. It depended altogether upon what part of the city one chose as a point of observation, whether one's judgment was one thing or its opposite, favorable or unfavorable. If one chose the Church Square, surrounded by houses, among which was our apothecary's shop, one could find little of good to say, although the chief street ran past there. But if one forsook the inner city and went down to the "River," as the Swine was regularly called, his hitherto unfavorable opinion was converted into its opposite. Here ran along the river, for nearly a mile, the "Bulwark," as poetic a riverside street as one could imagine. The very fact that here everything was kept to medium proportions, and there was nowhere anything to recall the grandeur of the really great commercial centres, these very medium dimensions gave everything an exceedingly attractive appearance, to which only a hypochondriac, or a person wholly unappreciative of the charms of form and color, could fail to respond. To be sure, this "Bulwark" street was not everywhere the same, indeed some parts of it left much to be desired, especially those up the river; but from the cross street which began at the corner of our house and led off at right angles one could find refreshment of spirit in the pictures that presented themselves, step by step, as one followed the course of the river. Here ran out from the sloping bank into the river a number of board rafts, some smaller, some larger, floating benches upon which, from early morning on, one saw maids at work washing clothes, always in cheerful conversation with one another, or with the sailors who leaned lazily over the street wall watching them. These rafts, which with the figures upon them produced a most picturesque effect, were called "clappers," and were used, especially by strangers and summer guests, for orientation and description of location. E.g. "He lives down by Klempin's clapper," or "opposite Jahnke's clapper." Between the rafts or wash benches were regular spaces devoted to piers, and here the majority of the ships were moored, in the winter often three or four rows. The crews were on shore at this time, and the only evidence that the vessels were not wholly unguarded was a column of smoke rising from the kitchen stovepipes, or, more often, a spitz-dog sitting on a mound of sailcloth, if not on the top of his kennel, and barking at the passersby. Then in the spring, when the Swine was again free from ice, everything began at once, as though by magic, to show signs of life, and the activity along the river indicated that the time for sailing was again near. Then the ships' hulls were laid on their sides, the better to examine them for possible injuries, and if any were found, one could see the following day, at corresponding places along the wharf, little fires made of chips of wood and raveled-out bits of old hawsers, and over them tar was simmering in three-legged iron pots. Beside these lay whole piles of oakum. And now the process of calking began. Then, as noon approached, another pot, filled with potatoes and bacon, was shoved into the fire, and many, many a time, as I passed by here on my way, at this hour, I eagerly inhaled the appetizing vapors, not in the least disturbed by the admixture of pitch. Even in my old age I am still fond of regaling myself, or at least my nerves, with the bitumen smoke that floats through our Berlin streets, when they are being newly asphalted.
In the spring and summer time activity was also resumed by the English steam dredger, which lay in the middle of the river, and upon which it was incumbent to clear the channel. The quantities of earth and slime drawn up from the bottom were emptied at a shallow place in the river and piled up so as to cause a little artificial island to come into existence. A few years later this island was covered with a rank growth of reeds and sedges, and in all probability it now supports houses and establishments of the marine station, as evidence to all those who saw the first third of the century, that times have changed and we have been growing as a world power.
For half an hour at a time, when possible, I watched the work of the English dredger, whose engineer, an old Scotchman by the name of Macdonald, was a special friend of mine. Who could have told then that, a generation later, I should make a tour of his Scottish clan and, under the guidance of a Maedonald, should visit the spot on the island of Icolmkill, where, according to an old fiction, King Macbeth lies buried.
I watched also, with as much interest as the dredging, the mooring of ships, when they came home from long voyages, some of them, such as the Queen Luise, a marine trading vessel, from their voyages around the world, which signified something in those days. My main vessel, however, was the Mentor, which was said to have won the victory in a fight with Chinese pirates. The pirates carried a long-barreled bronze cannon which shot better than the rough cast-iron cannons of which the Mentor had a few on board. Besides, the pirate boat was much swifter, so that our Swinemünde trader soon found itself in a bad position. But the captain was equal to the emergency. He had all his heavy cannons moved to one side of the ship, then purposely moderated his speed, in order to make it easier for his pursuers to catch up with him. And now their boat was really alongside, and the pirates were already preparing to climb over the side of the ship, when the captain of the Mentor gave the preconcerted signal and the cannons rolled with all force and swiftness from the one side of the ship to the other and the weight of the heavy guns, carrying the thin wall before them, crushed to pieces the boat lying below, already certain of victory, so that every soul on board was lost.
Such stories were always in the air and were associated, not only with the ships lying along the "Bulwark," but occasionally also with the houses on the opposite side. Further down the river both the houses and the stories lost their charm, until, at the very end of the city, one came to a large building standing back from the street, which again aroused interest. This was the recently erected "Society House," the meeting place not only for the summer bathers, but also, during the season, for the leading people of the city, of whom no one, perhaps, was more often seen there than my father. To be sure, his frequent visits were really not made on account of the "Society House" itself, least of all on account of the concerts and theatrical performances given in it, to say nothing of the occasional balls,—no, what attracted him and took him out there now and then even £or his morning glass, was a pavilion standing close by the "Society House," in which a major with a historical name and most affable manners, dressed in a faultless blue frock coat with gold buttons, kept the bank. This was only too often the resort of my father, who, when he had lost a considerable sum and had correspondingly enriched the pot of the bank keeper, instead of being out of sorts over it, simply drew the inference that the keeping of the bank was a business that produced sure gain, and the old major with the high white neckcloth and the diamond pin was an extremely enviable man and, above all, one very worthy of emulation. In such a career one got something out of life. My father expressed such opinions, too, when he came home and sat down late to dinner. This he did once in the presence of a recently married sister of my mother, who was visiting in our home during the bathing season.