Chapter XXXVI (2)

In the house she was indeed a treasure, but for us children, especially me, she was even more than that, she was a real blessing. The training we received from our parents advanced by fits and starts; sometimes there was training and again there was none, and never any thought of continuity. But the Schröder girl supplied the continuity. She had no favorites, never allowed herself to be outwitted, and knew just how to handle each one of us. As for me, she knew that I was good-natured, but sensitive, proud, and under the control of a certain degree of megalomania. These bad inclinations she wished to hold in check, and so said to me times without number: "Yes, you think you are a marvelous fellow, but you are only a childish boy, just like the rest of them, only at times a bit worse. You always want to play the young gentleman, but young gentlemen don't lick honey from their plates, or at least don't deny it if they have done so, in fact they never tell lies. Not long ago I heard you prating about honor, but I want to tell you, _that_ doesn't look to me like honor." She insisted upon truthfulness, treated boasting with fine ridicule, and was chary of compliments. But when she did praise it was effective. She did me many a good turn, and not until late in life, when I was past fifty, did I meet another woman, this time an elderly lady, who exerted such an educational influence upon me. Even now I am still taking lessons and learn from people who are young enough to be my grandchildren.

Thus much about the good Schröder girl, and after this digression in memory of her I ask once more: "Well, how did we live?" I propose to show how we lived, by means of a series of pictures, and in order to introduce order and clarity into the description it will be well to divide our life as we lived it into two halves, a summer life and a winter life.

First, then, there was the summer life. About the middle of June we regularly had the house full of visitors; for my mother, in accordance with the old custom, still kept in touch with her relatives, a trait which we children only very imperfectly inherited from her. But let it be understood, she kept in touch with her relatives, not to derive advantages from them, but to bestow advantages. She was incredibly generous, and there were times when we, after we had grown up, asked ourselves the question, which passion really threatened us most, the gaming passion of our father, or the giving and presenting passion of our mother. But we finally discovered the answer to the question. What our father did was simply money thrown away, whereas the excessive amounts given away by our mother were always unselfishly given and carried with them a quiet blessing. No doubt a certain desire to be, so far as possible, a _grande dame_, if only in a very small degree, had something to do with it, but then all our doings show some elements of human weakness. Later in life, when we talked with her about these things, she said: "Certainly, I might have refrained from doing many things. We spent far more than our income. But I said to myself: 'What there is will be spent anyhow, and so it is better for it to go my way than the other.'"

These summer months, from the middle of June on, were often made especially charming by the numbers of visitors in our home, mostly young women relatives from Berlin, who were both cheerful and talkative. The household was then completely changed, for weeks at a time, and, the hatchet being temporarily buried, merriment and playing of sly tricks, with occasional boisterous pranks, became the order of the day. The most brilliant performer in the fun-making competitions that frequently arose was always my father himself. He was, as handsome men often are, the absolute opposite of Don Juan, and proud of his virtue. But by as much as he was unlike Don Juan, he was charming as a Gascon, when it came to a spirited discussion of pert and often most daring themes, with young ladies, of whom he made but one requirement, that they be handsome, otherwise it was not worth his while. I inherited from him this inclination to enter into subtle discussions with ladies, in a jesting tone; indeed I have ever carried this inclination over into my style of writing, and when I read corresponding scenes in my novels and short stories it once in awhile seems to me as though I heard my father speaking. Except with this difference, that I fall far short of his felicitousness, as people who had known him in his prime often told me, when he was over severity and I was correspondingly along in years. I have frequently been addressed in some such way as this: "Now see here, you do very well, when you have your good days, but you can't compete with your father." And that was certainly true. His small talk, born of bonhomie and at the same time enlivened with fantastic lawyerly artifice, was simply irresistible, even when dealing with business matters, in which as a rule heartiness has no place. And yet his remarks on money matters had a lasting effect, so that none of us children ever cherished the slightest feeling of bitterness on account of his most remarkable financial operations. My mother, however, was of too different a nature to be easily converted or carried away by his social graces. These matters were to her most repugnant when treated lightly and jestingly. "Whatever is serious is not funny, that's all." But she never disputed the fact that, as a happy humorist, he always succeeded in drawing people over to his side, though she never failed to add: "unfortunately."

And now let us return to the summer visitors in our home. At times it was rather difficult to furnish continual rounds of entertainment for the young women, and would perhaps have proved impossible, if it had not been for the horses. Almost every afternoon, when the weather was good, the carriage drove up to our door, and such days during the bathing season, when we were often almost completely overwhelmed with visitors, were probably the only times when my mother, without in the least sacrificing her fundamental convictions, was temporarily reconciled to the existence of horse and carriage. Whoever knows Swinemünde, and there are many who do know the place, is aware of the fact that one is never embarrassed there for a beautiful spot to visit on afternoon drives, and even in those days this was as true as it is today. There was the trip along the beach to Heringsdorf, or, on the other side, out to the moles; but the most popular drives, because they afforded protection from the sun, were those back into the country, either through the dense beech forest toward Corswant, or better still to the village of Camminke, situated near the Haff of Stettin and the Golm (mountain). There was a much frequented skittle-alley there, where women played as well as men. I myself liked to stand by the splintery lath trough, in which the skittle-boy rolled back the balls. My only reason for choosing this position was because I had heard a short time before that one of the players at this very alley, in catching a ball as it rolled to him, had run a long lath splinter under the nail of his index finger. That had made such an impression on me that I always stood there shuddering for fear of a repetition of the accident, which fortunately did not occur. When I finally grew tired of waiting I stepped through a lattice gate, always hanging aslant and always creaky, into a garden plot running along close by the skittle-alley and parallel with it. It was a genuine peasant's garden, with touch-me-nots and mignonette in bloom, and in one place the mallows grew so tall that they formed a lane. Then when the sun went down behind the forest the Golm, which lay to the west, was bathed in red light, and the metal ball on its tall pillar looked down, like a sphere of gold, upon the village and the skittle-garden. Myriads of mosquitoes hung in the air, and the bumble bees flew back and forth between the box-edged beds.

Our visitors usually left at the beginning of August, and when September came the last of the hotel guests departed from the city. If anybody chose to remain longer it was inconvenient for the landlords, in which connection the following scene occurred. A man, a Berliner of course, on returning to his hotel, after accompanying some departing friends to their steamer, sat down leisurely by his host and hostess, rubbed his hands together, and said: "Well, Hoppensack, at last the Berliners are all gone, or at least nearly all of them; now we shall have a good time, now it will be cozy." He expected, of course, that the host and hostess would agree with him most heartily. But instead of that he found himself looking into long faces. Finally he screwed up his courage and asked why they were so indifferent. "Why, good heavens, Mr. Schünemann," said Hoppensack, "a recorder and his wife came to us the last of May and now it is almost the middle of September. We want to be alone again, you see." As Mrs. Hoppensack nodded approvingly, there was nothing left for Schünemann to do but to depart himself the next day.

Not long after the last summer guests had gone the equinoctial storms set in, and, if it was a bad year, they lasted on into November. First the chestnuts fell, then the tiles rattled down from the roof, and from the eaves-troughs, always placed with their outlets close by bedroom windows, the rain splashed noisily down into the yard. In the course of time, scattered clouds sailed across the clearing sky and the air turned cold. Everybody felt the chilliness, and all day long there was an old woodchopper at work in the shed. My father would often go down to see him, take the ax and split wood for him a half-hour at a time.

Social activities were at a standstill during these late autumn days. People were recovering from the strain of the summer season and storing up strength for winter entertainments. Before these began there was an interregnum of several weeks, the slaughtering and baking times, the latter coinciding with the Christmas period. First came the slaughtering of geese. A regular household without a goose-killing time could hardly have been thought of. Many things had to be taken into account. First of all, perhaps, were the feathers to make new beds, which were always needed for guest chambers; but the chief concern were the smoked goose-breasts, almost as important articles as the hams and sides of bacon hanging in the chimney. Shortly before St. Martin's day, if enough geese had been collected to supply the needs, they were penned up for fattening, in the court, which gave rise to a horrible cackling, well calculated to rob us of our night's rest for a whole week. But a day was straightway set for the beginning of the feast, about the middle of November. In the court, in a lean-to built near the end of the house, and, strange to say, with a dove-cote over it, was the servants' room, in which, beside the cook, two house-maids slept, provided always they did any sleeping. The coachman was supposed, according to a rule of the house, to occupy the straw-loft, but was happy to forego the independence of these quarters, which went with his position, preferring by his presence to crowd still worse the already crowded space of the servants' room, in full accord with Schiller's lines,

"Room is in the smallest hovel
For a happy, loving pair."

But when goose-killing time came it meant a very considerable further overcrowding, for on the evening that the massacring was to begin there was added to the number of persons usually quartered in the servants' room a special force of old women, four or five in number, who at other times earned a living at washing or weeding.

Then the sacrificial festivities began, always late in the evening. Through the wide-open door--open, because otherwise it would not have been possible to endure the stifling air--the stars shone into the smoky room, which was dimly lighted by a tallow candle, with always a thief in the candle. Near the door stood in a semi-circle the five slaughter priestesses, each with a goose between her knees, and as they bored holes through the skullcaps of the poor fowls, with sharp kitchen knives--a procedure, the necessity of which I have never understood--they sang all sorts of folk-songs, the text of which formed a strange contrast, as well to the murderous act as to the mournful melody. At least one had to suppose this to be the case, for the maids, who sat on the edge of the bed with their guest from the straw-loft between them, followed the folksongs with never-ending merriment, and at the passages that sounded specially mournful they even burst into cheers. Both my parents were morally strict, and they often discussed the question, whether there were not some way to put a stop to this insolent conduct, but they finally gave it up. My father had a lurking suspicion that such a custom had existed in antiquity, and, after he-had looked the matter up, said: "It is a repetition of ancient conditions, the Roman saturnalia, or, what amounts to the same thing, a case where the servants temporarily lord it over the so-called lords." When he had thus classified the occurrence historically he was satisfied, the more so as the maids always amused him the following morning by lowering their eyes in a most unusually modest fashion. Then he would make fantastically extravagant remarks, as though _Gil Blas_ had been his favorite book. That was not the case, however. He read Walter Scott exclusively, for which I am grateful to him even to this day, since, even then, a few crumbs fell from his table for me. His favorite among all the works was _Quintin Durward_, probably on account of its French subject.

I have here further to add that the terrors of this goose-killing time were by no means ended with the slaughter night and the mournful melodies. On the contrary, they lasted at least three or four days longer, for the slaughtering time was also the time when the giblets dressed with goose-blood were served daily at our table, a dish which, according to the Pomeranian view, stands unrivaled in the realm of cookery. Furthermore my father considered it his duty to support the view peculiar to this region, and, when the great steaming platter appeared, would say: "Ah, that is fine! Just eat some of this; it is the black soup of the Spartans, full of strength and stamina." But I observed that he, along with the rest of us, picked out the dried fruit and almond dumplings, leaving the nourishing gravy for the servants outside, above all for the slaughtering and mourning women, who by their boring operations had established the most legitimate claim to it.

About a fortnight later came the pig-killing, toward which my feeling remained exactly the same as on that occasion when, hardly seven years of age, I had fled from the city toward Alt-Ruppin, in order to escape, not only the spectacle, but a whole gamut of ear-and-heart-rending sounds. But I had meanwhile grown out of childhood into boyhood, and a boy, whether he will or no, feels honor-bound manfully to take everything that comes along, even if his own deepest nature revolts against it. That the prospect of rice pudding with raisins in it was a contributing factor in this comedy of bravery, I am unable to say, for fond as I am of good things to eat, I was always, during the weeks just preceding Christmas, half upset by the smell of hot grease that drifted through the house. At least I never had what could be called a really good appetite during this period, despite the fact that it would have been particularly worth while just then. Especially would such have been the case when, as usually happened about the first of December, a stag was sent in from the chief forester's and was hung up, eviscerated, as game usually is, against the gable end of the servants' house. Day after day the cook would go to this horrible gable ornament and cut out, first the haunch, then the shoulders and legs, with the result that we always heaved a sigh of relief when the glory of this venison was a thing of the past.

A far happier time was the baking week, which began with spice-nuts and sugar cookies, and ended with bretzels, wreath-cakes, and cakes baked on tins. Not only were we admitted to the bakeroom, where there was a most alluring odor of bitter almonds and grated lemons; we also received, as a foretaste of Christmas, a bountiful supply of little cake-rolls, baked especially for us children. "I know," said my mother, "that the children will upset their stomachs eating them, but even that is better than that they should be restricted to too low a diet. They shall have joyful holiday feeling during all these days, and nothing can give it to them better than holiday cakes." There is something in that view, and it may be absolutely right if the children are thoroughly robust. But we were not so robust that the principle could be applied to us without modification. And so, about Christmas time, I was always much given to crying.

On New Year's Eve there was a club ball, which I, being the oldest child, was allowed to witness. I took my position in one corner of the hall and looked on with vacillating feelings. When the dancing couples whirled past me I was happy, on the one hand, because I was permitted to stand there as a sort of guest and share in the pleasure with my eyes, and yet, on the other hand, I was unhappy, because I was merely an onlooker instead of a participator in the dance. My personal insignificance weighed heavy upon me, doubly heavy because of the gastric condition I was regularly in at this reason, and it continued so until the nightwatchman, wrapped in his long blue cloak, came into the hall at midnight and, after blowing a preliminary signal on his horn, wished everybody a happy New Year. Then, as if by magic, my feeling of sentimentality vanished entirely, and I was carried away by the comic grotesqueness of the scene, and soon regained my freedom and buoyancy of spirit.

Just about this time social activities began, taking the form of a series of weekly feasts, many of which resembled that of Belshazzar, in so far as a spirit hand was at the very time writing the bankruptcy of the host upon the wall. However, my knowledge of the details of these feasts was derived only from hearsay. But any special banquets, whether great or small, that fell to the lot of our own house I saw with my own eyes and it is about these that I now propose to tell.

When it came our turn to entertain, the whole house was pervaded with a feeling of solemnity, which had a certain similarity to the feeling at the time of a wedding. Furthermore, a parallel to the tripartite division into wedding-eve celebration, wedding day, and the day after, appeared in the form of preparation day, real feast-day, and eating of the remnants. Which of these three days deserved the prize may remain an open question, but I am inclined to believe I liked the first the best. To be sure, it was unepicurean and called for much self-restraint, but it was rich in anticipation of glorious things to come.

On this day of preparation the widow Gaster, a celebrated cook, came to our house, as she did to all other houses on similar occasions. Her personal appearance united complacence with dignity, and by virtue of this latter quality she was received with respect and unlimited confidence. Because of a dislike, easily understood, for all the things she had to prepare day in and day out, especially sweets, she lived-almost exclusively on red wine, deriving the little other sustenance she needed from the vapors of hot grease, with which she was continually surrounded. Her arrival at our house was always a signal for me to plant myself near the kitchen, where everything that took place could be observed and, incidentally, admired. It was always her first task to bake a tree-cake on a spit. She kept a record of all the tree-cakes she baked, and when the number reached a thousand the housewives of Swinemünde gave her a well-deserved feast in celebration of the achievement. To be sure, tree-cakes are to be had even today, but they are degenerations, weak, spongy, and pale-cheeked, whereas in those days they had a happy firmness, which in the most successful specimens rose to crispness, accompanied by a scale of colors running from the darkest ocher to the brightest yellow. It always gave me great pleasure to watch a tree-cake come into being. Toward the back wall of a huge fireplace stood a low half-dome, built of bricks, the top projecting forward like a roof, the bottom slanting toward the back. Along this slanting part was built a narrow charcoal fire about four feet long and by it were placed two small iron supports, upon which a roasting spit was laid, with a contrivance for turning it. However, the spit resting upon the supports proved to be something more than a mere rod. In fact the spit itself was run lengthwise through a hollow wooden cone, which had a covering of greased paper over its outer surface, and the purpose of which was to form a core for the tree-cake. Then, with a tin spoon fastened upon a long stick, the cook began to pour on a thin batter, which at first dripped off in a way that made the method of application appear futile, and this continued for a considerable length of time. But from the moment that the batter became more consistent, and the dripping slower, hope began to revive, and in a few hours the splendidly browned and copiously jagged tree-cake was taken off the wooden cone. All this had a symbolical significance. The successful completion of this _pièce de résistance_ inspired confidence in the success of the feast itself. The tree-cake cast the horoscope, so to speak, of the whole affair.

I shall pass over the kitchen activities on the day of the entertainment and describe instead the feast itself. Along extension table was moved into my mother's parlor--the only room available for the purpose--and soon stood well set in front of the moire sofa with the three hundred silver studs. The guests were not seated at the table till the candles were lit. The man who presided over the banquet always sat with his back toward the Schinkel mirror, whereas all the other guests could, with little or no inconvenience, observe themselves in the glass.

So far as I can recall they were always gentlemen's dinner parties, with twelve or fourteen persons, and only on rare occasions did my mother appear at the table, then usually accompanied by her sister, who often visited us for months at a time in the winter season and was in those days still very young and handsome. It was always a specially difficult matter to assign her a suitable place, and only when old Mr. von Flemming and Privy Councillor Kind were present was she in any degree safe from extremely ardent attentions. It was almost impossible to protect her from such attentions. The men had respect for virtue, perhaps, though I have my doubts even about that, but virtuous airs were considered in bad taste, and where was the line to be drawn between reality and appearance? That the ladies retired from the table toward the end of the meal and appeared again only for a brief quarter of an hour to do the honors at coffee, goes without saying.

I have spoken above of the culinary art of good Mrs. Gaster, but in spite of that art the bill of fare was really simple, especially in comparison with the luxury prevalent nowadays at dinner parties. Simple, I say, and yet stable. No man was willing to fall behind a set standard, nor did he care to go beyond it. The soup was followed by a fish course, and that, without fail, by French turnips and smoked goose-breast. Then came a huge roast, and finally a sweet dish, with fruits, spice-cakes, and Königsberg marchpane. An almost greater simplicity prevailed with respect to the wines. After the soup sherry was passed. Then a red wine of moderate price and moderate quality gained the ascendant and held sway till coffee was served. So the peculiar feature of these festivities did not lie in the materials consumed, but, strange to say, in a certain spiritual element, in the tone that prevailed. This varied considerably, when we take into account the beginning and the end. The beginning was marked by toasts in fine style, and occasionally, especially if the feast was at the same time a family party--a birthday celebration or something of the sort--there were even verses, which from the point of view of regularity of form and cleverness of ideas left nothing to be desired. Only recently I found among my father's papers some of these literary efforts and was astonished to see how good they were. Humor, wit, and playing on words were never lacking. There were special occasions when even deep emotion, was expressed and then those who were farthest from having a proper feeling, but nearest to a state of delirium, arose regularly from their seats and marched up to the speaker to embrace and kiss him. This kissing scene always denoted the beginning of the second half of the feast. The further the dinner advanced the freer became the conversation, and, when it had reached the stage where all feeling of restraint was cast aside, the most insolent and often the rudest badgering was indulged in, or, if for any reason this was not allowed, the company began to rally certain individuals, or, as we might say, began to poke fun at them. One of the choicest victims of this favorite occupation of the whole round table was my papa. It had long been known that when it was a question of conversation he had three hobbies, viz., personal ranks and decorations in the Prussian State, the population of all cities and hamlets according to the latest census, and the names and ducal titles of the French marshals, including an unlimited number of Napoleonic anecdotes, the latter usually in the original. Occasionally this original version was disputed from the point of view of sentence structure and grammar, whereupon my father, when driven into a corner, would reply with imperturbable repose: "My French feeling tells me that it must be thus, thus and not otherwise," a declaration which naturally served but to increase the hilarity.

Yes, indeed, Napoleon and his marshals! My father's knowledge in this field was simply stupendous, and I wager there was not in that day a single historian, nor is there any now, who, so far as French war stories and personal anecdotes of the period from Marengo to Waterloo are concerned, would have been in any sense of the word qualified to enter into competition with him. Where he got all his material is an enigma to me. The only explanation I can offer is that he had in his memory a pigeonhole, into which fell naturally everything he found that appealed to his passion, in his constant reading of journals and miscellanies.

* * * * *

When we had been safely lodged, at Midsummer, 1827, in the house with the gigantic roof and the wooden eavestrough, into which my father could easily lay his hand, this question immediately presented itself: "What is to become of the children now? To what school shall we send them?" If my mother had been there a solution of the problem would doubtless have been found, one that would have had due regard for what was befitting our station, at least, if not for what we should learn. But since my mama, as already stated, had remained in Berlin to receive treatment for her nerves, the decision rested with my father, and he settled the matter in short order, presumably after some such characteristic soliloquy as follows: "The city has only one school, the city school, and as the city school is the only one, it is consequently the best." No sooner thought than done. Before a week was passed I was a pupil of the city school. About the school I remember very little, only that there was a large room with a blackboard, stifling air in spite of the fact that the windows were always open, and an endless number of boys in baize and linen jackets, unkempt and barefoot, or in wooden shoes, which made a fearful noise. It was very sad. But even then, as unfortunately in later years, I had so few pleasing illusions about going to school that the conditions previously described to me did not appear specially dreadful when I became personally acquainted with them. I simply supposed that things had to be thus. But toward autumn, when my mother arrived on the scene and saw me coming home from school with the wooden-shoe boys, she was beside herself and cast an anxious glance at my hair, which she doubtless thought she could not well trust in such company. She then had one of her heart-to-heart talks with my father, who was probably told that he had again taken only himself into consideration. That same day my withdrawal from school was announced to Rector Beda, who lived diagonally across the street from us. He was not angry at the announcement, declared, on the contrary, to my mother that "he had really been surprised. * * *" Thus far all was well. Just criticism had been exercised and action had been taken in accord with it. But now that it was necessary to find something better to substitute for the school, even my mother was at her wits' end. Teachers seemed to be, or were in fact, lacking, and as it had been impossible in so short a time to establish relations to the good families of the city, it was decided for the present to let me grow up wild and calmly to wait till something turned up. But to prevent my lapsing into dense ignorance I was to read an hour daily to my mother and learn some Latin and French words from my father, in addition to geography and history.

"Will you be equal to that, Louis?" my mother had asked.

"Equal to? What do you mean by 'equal to?' Of course I am equal to it. Your same old lack of confidence in me."

"Not twenty-four hours ago you yourself were full of doubt about it."

"I presume the plan did not appeal to me then. But if it must be, I understand the Prussian pharmacopoeia as well as anybody, and in my parents' house French was spoken. As for the rest, to speak of it would be ridiculous. You know that in such things I am more than a match for ten graduates."

As a matter of fact he really gave me lessons, which, I may say in advance, were kept up even after the need of them no longer existed, and, peculiar as these lessons were, I learned more from them than from many a famous teacher. My father picked out quite arbitrarily the things he had long known by heart or, perhaps, had just read the same day, and vitalized geography with history, always, of course, in such a way that in the end his favorite themes were given due prominence. For example:

"Do you know about East and West Prussia?"

"Yes, papa; that is the country after which Prussia is called Prussia and after which we are all called Prussians."

"Very good, very good; a little too much Prussia, but that doesn't matter. And do you also know the capitals of the two provinces?"

"Yes, papa; Königsberg and Danzig."

"Very good. I myself have been in Danzig, and came near going to Königsberg, too, but something intervened. Have you ever heard perchance who it was that finally captured Danzig after the brave defense of our General Kalckreuth?"

"No, papa."

"Well, it is not to be expected. Very few people do know it, and the so-called higher educated never know it. Well, it was General Lefèvre, a man of rare bravery, upon whom Napoleon later bestowed the title of _Duc de Dantzic_, spelled with a final c, in which regard the languages differ. That was in the year 1807."

"After the battle of Jena?"

"Yes, it may be put that way; but only in the same sense as if you were to say, it was after the Seven Years' War."

"I don't understand, papa."

"Doesn't matter. I mean, Jena was too long ago. But one might say it was after the battle of Prussian Eylau, a fearfully bloody battle, in which the Russian Guard was almost annihilated, and in which Napoleon, before surrendering, said to his favorite Duroc: 'Duroc, today I have made the acquaintance of the sixth great power of Europe, _la boue_.'"

"What does that mean?"

"_La boue_ means the mud. But one can express it more strongly in German, and I am inclined to think that Napoleon, who, when he felt like it, had something cynical about him, really meant this stronger expression."

"What is cynical?"

"Cynical--hm, cynical--it is a word often used, and one might say, cynical is the same as rough or brutal. But I presume it may be defined more accurately. We will look it up later in the encyclopedia. It is well to be informed about such things, but one does not need to know everything on the spur of the moment."

Such was the character of the geography lessons, always ending with historical anecdotes. But he preferred to begin at once with history, or what seemed to him history. And here I must mention his pronounced fondness for all the events and the persons concerned in them between the siege of Toulon and the imprisonment on the island of St. Helena. He was always reverting to these persons and things. I have elsewhere named his favorites, with Ney and Lannes at the head of the list, but in that enumeration I forgot to mention one man, who stood perhaps nearer to his heart than these, namely, Latour d'Auvergne, of whom he had told me any number of anecdotes back in our Ruppin days. These were now repeated. According to the new stories Latour d'Auvergne bore the title of the "First Grenadier of France," because in spite of his rank of general he always stood in the rank and file, next to the right file-leader of the Old Guard. Then when he fell, in the battle of Neuburg, Napoleon gave orders that the heart of the "First Grenadier" be placed in an urn and carried along with the troop, and that his name, Latour d'Auvergne, be regularly called at every roll-call, and the soldier serving as file-leader be instructed to answer in his stead and tell where he was. This was about what I had long ago learned by heart from my father's stories; but his fondness for this hero was so great that, whenever it was at all possible, he returned to him and asked the same questions. Or, to be more accurate, the same scene was enacted, for it was a scene.

"Do you know Latour d'Auvergne?" he usually began.

"Certainly. He was the First Grenadier of France."

"Good. And do you also know how he was honored after he was dead?"

"Certainly."

"Then tell me how it was."

"Very well; but you must first stand up, papa, and be file-leader, or I can't do it."

Then he would actually rise from his seat on the sofa and in true military fashion take his position before me as file-leader of the Old Guard, while I myself, little stick-in-the-mud that I was, assumed the part of the roll-calling officer. Then I began to call the names:

"Latour d'Auvergne!"

"He is not here," answered my father in a basso profundo voice.

"Where is he, pray?"

"He died on the field of honor."

Once in awhile my mother attended these peculiar lessons--the one about Latour, however, was never ventured in her presence--and she did not fail to give us to understand, by her looks, that she considered this whole method, which my father with an inimitable expression of countenance called his "Socratic method," exceedingly dubious. But she, by nature wholly conventional, not only in this particular, but in others, was absolutely wrong, for, to repeat, I owe in fact to these lessons, and the similar conversations growing out of them, all the best things, at least all the most practical things, I know. Of all that my father was able to teach me nothing has been forgotten and nothing has proved useless for my purposes. Not only have these stories been of hundredfold benefit to me socially throughout my long life, they have also, in my writing, been ever at hand as a Golden Treasury, and if I were asked, to what teacher I felt most deeply indebted, I should have to reply: to my father, my father, who knew nothing at all, so to speak, but, with his wealth of anecdotes picked up from newspapers and magazines, and covering every variety of theme, gave me infinitely more help than all my _Gymnasium_ and _Realschule_ teachers put together. What information these men offered me, even if it was good, has been for the most part forgotten; but the stories of Ney and Rapp have remained fresh in my memory to the present hour.

My father's method, which, much as I feel indebted to it, was after all somewhat peculiar and utterly devoid of logic and consistency, would in all probability have led to violent quarrels between my parents, if my critical mother, who saw only its weaknesses and none of its virtues, had attached any special significance to it in general. But that was not the case. She only felt that my father's way of teaching was totally different from the usual way, in that it would not lead to many practical results, i.e., would not give me much preparation for an examination, and in this respect she was perfectly right. However, as she herself attached so little value to knowledge in general, she contented herself with smiling at the "Socratic method," as she saw no reason for becoming seriously wrought up over it. According to her honest conviction there were other things in life of far greater importance than knowledge, to say nothing of erudition, and these other things were: a good appearance and good manners. That her children should all present a good appearance was with her an article of faith, so to speak, and she considered it a natural consequence of their good appearance that they either already had or would acquire good manners. So the only essential was to present a good appearance. Serious studies seemed to her not a help, but, on the contrary, a hindrance to happiness, that is to say, real happiness, which she looked upon as inseparable from money and property. A hundred-thousand-dollar man _was_ something, and she respected, even honored him, whereas chief judges and councillors of the chancery commanded very little respect from her, and would have commanded even less, if the State, which she did respect, had not stood behind them. She was incapable of bowing in good faith to any so-called spiritual authority, not because she cherished too exalted an opinion of herself--she was, on the contrary, entirely without vanity and arrogance--but solely because, constituted as she was, she could not recognize an authority of knowledge, much less of erudition, in a practical field of life--and with her the non-practical fields never entered into consideration.

I still remember the time, some twenty years after the events just narrated, when my parents were thinking of separating and of eventually being divorced. A separation actually came about, the divorce idea was dropped. But the latter was for a time considered in all seriousness, and a friend of our family, Pastor Schultz, the then preacher at Bethany, who made a specialty of divorce questions--it was in the reign of Frederick William IV., when such problems were treated with revived dogmatic severity--Pastor Schultz, I say, opposed the plan, as soon as he heard of it, with all his power and eloquence. My mother had a great deal of admiration for him and knew, besides, the respect he enjoyed of "those highest in authority," and "those highest in authority" meant something to her; nevertheless his severe presentation of the matter made not the slightest impression upon her; in fact his argument was so fruitless that, as soon as he finished, she said with a reposeful air of superiority: "My dear Schultz, you understand this question thoroughly; but whether or not I have a right to secure a divorce is a question which no human being in the whole world can answer so well as I myself." With that she closed the conversation.

She was similarly skeptical of every kind of authority, and had no confidence whatever in the ability of the three university faculties. For example, since patriarchal conditions were her ideal, she questioned whether mankind derived any material advantages from jurisprudence. It settled everything, as she thought, by favoritism or personal advantage, or at least in a mechanical way. Riches, property, especially landed property, accompanied if possible by the airs of a legation attaché--_that_ was something that unlocked the world and the hearts of men, that was real power. Everything else was comedy, illusion, a soap-bubble, that threatened to burst any moment. And then nothing was left. One can readily understand why my mother, with such views, insisted upon taking me out of the barefoot school, and did not consider an interim, with no regular school instruction, any special misfortune. The evil in it was that it violated the rule. As for the rest, the little bit of learning lost could be made up at any time. And if not, then not....

It is a pretty saying that every child has its angel, and one does not need to be very credulous to believe it. For the little tots this angel is a fairy, enveloped in a long white lily veil, which stands smiling at the foot of a cradle and either wards off danger or helps out of it when it is really at hand. That is the fairy for the little ones. But when one has outgrown the cradle or crib, and has begun to sleep in a regular bed, in other words, when one has become a robust boy, one still needs his angel just the same, indeed the need is all the greater. But instead of the lily angel it needs to be a sort of archangel, a strong, manly angel, with shield and spear, otherwise his strength will not suffice for his growing tasks.

As a matter of fact, I was not wild and venturesome, and all my escapades that were attributed to me as of such a nature were always undertaken after a wise estimate of my strength. Nevertheless I have, with respect to that period, a feeling that I was constantly being rescued, a feeling in which I can hardly be in error. When I left home at the age of twelve, the age at which, as a usual thing, real dangers begin, there was doubtless a sudden change in my case, for it now seems to me as though my angel had had a vacation from that time on. All dangers ceased entirely or shrank into such insignificance that they left no impression upon me. In view of the fact that the two periods were so close together, there must have been this difference, otherwise I should not have retained such entirely different feelings about them.

It was one of our chief sports to fire off so-called shooting-keys. That the children of large cities know anything about shooting-keys is hardly probable, hence I may be permitted to describe them here. They were hollow keys with very thin walls, consequently of enormous bore, so to speak, and were used to lock trunks, especially the trunks of servant girls. It was our constant endeavor to gain possession of such keys and at times our expeditions were nothing short of piracy. Woe be unto the poor servant girl who forgot to take a key out of its lock! She never saw it again. We took possession of it, and the simple procedure of filing out a touchhole produced a finished firearm. As these keys were always rusty, and occasionally split, it not infrequently happened that they burst; but we always escaped injury. The angel helped.

Much more dangerous was the art of making fireworks, which I was always practicing. With the help of sulphur and saltpeter, which we kept in a convenient place in the apothecary's shop, I had made of myself a full-fledged pyrotechnician, in which process I was very materially aided by my skill in the manipulation of cardboard and paste. All sorts of shells were easily made, and so I produced Catherine-wheels, revolving suns, and flower-pots. Often these creations refused to perform the duty expected of them, and then we piled them up and, by means of a sulphurated match, touched off the whole heap of miscarried glory and waited to see what it would do. This was all done with comparatively little danger. Fraught with all the more danger for us was the thing which was considered the simplest and lowest product of the art of pyrotechnics, and was so rated by us, viz., the serpent. Very often the serpents I made would not burn properly, because I had not used the right mixture, no doubt, and that always vexed me greatly. When a Catherine-wheel refused to turn, that could at least be tolerated, for a Catherine-wheel is a comparatively difficult thing to make. A serpent, on the other hand, could not well help burning, and when, for all that, one simply would not burn, that was a humiliation that could not be suffered. So I would bend over the shells as they stuck in the pile of sand and begin to blow, in order to give new life to the dying tinder fire. When it went out entirely, that was really the best thing for me. But if it went off suddenly, my hair was singed or my forehead burned. Nothing worse ever happened, for the angel was protecting me with his shield.

That was the element of fire. But we also came in contact with water, which was not to be wondered at in a seaport.

In the autumn of 1831 a Berlin relative made me a present of a cannon, not just an ordinary child's plaything, such as can be bought of any coppersmith or tinner, but a so-called pattern-cannon, such as is seen only in arsenals,--a splendid specimen, of great beauty and elegance, the carriage firm and neat, the barrel highly polished and about a foot and a half long. I was more than delighted, and determined to proceed at once to a bombardment of Swinemünde. Two boys of my age and my younger brother climbed with me into a boat lying at Klempin's Clapper, and we rowed down-stream, with the cannon in the bow. When we were about opposite the Society House I considered that the time had arrived for the beginning of the bombardment, and fired three shots, waiting after each shot to see whether the people on the "Bulwark" took notice of us, and whether they showed due respect for the seriousness of our actions. But neither of these things happened. A thing that did happen, however, was that we meanwhile got out into the current, were caught by it and carried away, and when we suddenly saw ourselves between the embankments of the moles, I was suddenly seized with a terrible fright. I realized that, if we kept on in this way, in ten minutes more we should be out at sea and might drift away toward Bornholm and the Swedish coast. It was a desperate situation, and we finally resorted to the least brave, but most sensible, means imaginable, and began to scream with all our might, all the time beckoning and waving various objects, showing on the whole considerable cleverness in the invention of distress signals. At last we attracted the attention of some pilots standing on the West mole, who shook their fingers threateningly at us, but finally, with smiling countenances, threw us a rope. That rescued us from danger. One of the pilots knew me; his son was one of my playmates. This doubtless accounts for the fact that the seamen dismissed us with a few epithets, which might have been worse. I took my cannon under my arm, but not without having the satisfaction of seeing it admired. Then I went home, after promising to send out Hans Ketelböter, a lusty sailor-boy who lived quite near our home, to row back the boat, which was meanwhile moored to a pile.

This was the most unique among my adventures with water, but by no means the most dangerous. The most dangerous was at the same time the most ordinary, because it recurred every time I went swimming in the sea. Any one who knows the Baltic seaside resorts, knows the so-called "reffs." By "reffs" are meant the sandbanks running parallel to the beach, out a hundred or two hundred paces, and often with very little water washing over them. Upon these the swimmers can stand and rest, when, they have crossed the deep places lying between them and the shore. In order that they may know exactly where these shallow places are, little red banners are hoisted over the sandbanks. Here lay for me a daily temptation. When the sea was calm and everything normal, my skill as a swimmer was just sufficient to carry me safely over the deep places to the nearest sandbank. But if the conditions were less favorable, or if by chance I let myself down too soon, so that I had no solid ground beneath my feet, I was frightened, sometimes almost to death. Luckily I always managed to get out, though not by myself. Strength and help came from some other source.

Another danger of water which I was destined to undergo had no connection with the sea, but occurred on the river, close by the "Bulwark," not five hundred paces from our house. I shall tell about it later; but first I wish to insert here another little occurrence, in which no help of an angel was needed.