What could I express other than the greatest desire to make the acquaintance of his wife?
Walking between the first houses of the hamlet of Westerland this worthy lady had already caught up with us and taken the arm of her daughter. She overlooked me completely to begin with of course to dedicate herself wholeheartedly to family matters.
"So you've finally turned up, Löhnefinke?! Your usual lack of consideration for others as is your wont! Let me tell you, Löhnefinke…"
"My dear Johanna, look who's here! My friend and correspondent…"
It doesn't happen very often that one is shoved as a folding screen between a cold draught and the armchair of a rheumatic! The introductions took place and I adapted myself with my inherent good nature to the role meted out to me. After a few polite exchanges the four of us pushed on together to the collection of modest, low, peaceful, Frisian huts and if there was still one last dark spot for me in the soul of my colleague, it vanished completely on this short trek.
How the moon, that German moon, looked down and laughed at the two women and the Royal Prussian Circuit Judge! It knows how to take its revenge alright. It has its means, it knows the means at its disposal and it knows how to use them. My friend Löhnefinke is quite right—it's a terrible thing to have to inherit the legacy of generations, of centuries past without being permitted beforehand to make use of the privilege in law to limit the amounts owing to one's creditors. It's a crying shame first of all not to pay attention to that pallid, waxing and waning companion, then to despise it and finally to be given over to its influence without any great resistance on your part and to surrender oneself!
One needs to be a man—a German man and a civil servant—to be able to experience the full horror of something like this. Mrs Johanna and Miss Helene Löhnefinke, without ever having considered the claims of the moon on people, had sided totally with the moon and were exacting its revenge on him who had despised it. It was not foreseeable how far down they might bring their husband and father—they had brought him down enough as it was.
Late that night, when I was back with my baker, I smoked half a dozen pipes musing over the lessons and experiences of the previous day and decided around midnight to send my son, currently studying mathematics in Göttingen, a copy of the complete works of Jean Paul Friedrich Richter* for his next birthday.
*Jean Paul Friedrich Richter (1763-1825) was born Johann Paul
Friedrich Richter and was a German romantic writer of humorous
novels and stories. He changed his name to Jean in honour of the
French romantic, Jean-Jacques Rousseau.