Chapter XIII: Part 13

At first he was little inclined to favour my plan; then gradually it dawned upon him that I should certainly be a very cheap cab-driver, who would cost him nothing, and moreover put thirty shillings into his pocket, a sum which I then and there counted upon the table. He began to treat me with a certain air of gentle indulgence, such as one bestows upon a person who is not fully in his right mind, and whom it is best not to irritate. One favourable circumstance was that he had just had a new coat and a new pair of trousers made for one of his drivers; provided these garments fitted me, I should put them on to-morrow. As far as the hat was concerned, he would let me take the one belonging to Gustav, the driver whose place I was to take.

“So then,--to-morrow morning at five o’clock,” he said, “right here in the yard!”

“I shall be here to-morrow morning at five o’clock,” I replied with an easy air, as if it were a daily habit of mine to get up at five. I was turning to go, when he called after me, “But you must leave your eye-glasses at home!” and he pointed to my nose; “that will never do for a cab-driver!”

“You are right,” I rejoined; “I shall get me a pair of steel spectacles.”

With that I left him, and partook myself to a masquerade-shop, where I procured a large beard to cover the lower part of my face, and a wig; beside my original object of disguising myself as far as possible, the thought of Gustav’s cocked hat made a special head-gear seem desirable. Beard and wig were sprinkled with grey, and must needs give me an air of homely dignity. In the shop of an optician I completed my outfit, looking through his entire stock of clumsy, old-fashioned spectacles. I could not find the desired steel spectacles, but there was a pair of horn ones with enormous circular glasses, by means of which my face gained an owl-like expression. That was what I wanted. Putting my treasures in my pocket, I stepped out upon the street, very well satisfied with myself. The energetic way in which I had seized upon this great enterprise pleased me; all my arrangements struck me as being exceedingly practical; I had a happy presentiment as to the success of my undertaking; this success I involuntarily carried into my thoughts of the novel that was to be, and I began to conjecture what remuneration I should demand. “I can’t let you have it cheap, gentlemen,” I said half-audibly with a triumphant smile, as I opened the door of the wine-room where I expected to meet my friends.

To evade every possibility of being recognised by them, I meant to tell them that I should be going out of town to-morrow.

This part of my programme also ran off smoothly. My friend Otto and all my other friends were present, and while my heart was leaping within me for proud joy over my new-discovered talent for adventure, I unfolded my fictitious plan of travel as coolly as possible.

The only person who seemed to be interested was my friend Otto.

“Going out of town?” he said. “Is it certain?”

“Quite certain,” I replied; “I shall be leaving to-morrow morning.”

“Where to?”

“Humph--a short trip to the country--to visit some relatives.”

“For how long?” he queried further.

“That depends; two or three days at the most.” It was really strange that he should be so inquisitive--and withal there was a peculiar look in his eyes. “He can’t know?” I asked myself involuntarily, but I did not complete my sentence. “That is all nonsense,” I said to myself; “he doesn’t even know anything about the novel--how could he guess anything?” Indeed, he seemed quite satisfied at last, and when I had left them all I walked home with the consciousness that things were going finely.

“Are you the gentleman?” asked a deep, grumbling voice, when in the grey dawn of morning I entered the yard next morning.

Without breakfast, for I had not wished to betray myself to my landlady, with a false beard on my face and a wig on my head, and an enormous pair of horn spectacles on my nose--my feelings can readily be imagined. And with all that I felt it incumbent upon me to feign a cheerful manner to keep Gustav--for I judged him to be the possessor of the bass voice--in good spirits.

“The weather will be gorgeous to-day,” I said, apparently in the best of humour, while my teeth were chattering with cold. Gustav grunted like a bear disturbed in his winter’s sleep.

“Can I put on the things?” I asked.

Gustav pointed to the office. “In there,” he said; “I’ll be hitching up while you’re about it.”

Soon after I came forth attired as a cab-driver.

In the middle of the yard stood the cab with a horse before it, which in the light of early dawn looked like some antediluvian animal. Gustav was occupied with the harness, and seemed disinclined to take notice of me.

“Here we are,” I said in a tone of assumed gaiety, which was not at all in keeping with my inmost mood. I seemed unspeakably ridiculous to myself.

Gustav looked at me askance, and made some inarticulate ejaculation. His conduct was not particularly encouraging. Upon the box I saw some sort of a receptacle with an open top.

“Aha,” I said, stepping up to it, “I presume this is the fodder-chest?”

Gustav looked at the receptacle and then at me. “That there?” he said; “sure, that’s my hat.”

“Ah, so----” I stammered in embarrassment; “your hat? Permit me.”

It was with strange feelings that I took the hat from the box and held it in my hand.

“Number twelve thirty-two,” said Gustav laconically.

“Twelve thirty-two,” I repeated. It was the first time in my life that I felt I had a number.

“At noon you have to feed him the first time,” Gustav informed me.

“Feed whom?” I asked involuntarily; my thoughts were occupied with the hat, and I thought that was what he was referring to.

Gustav seemed to consider it beneath him to answer my insipid question.

“Between four and five,” he continued, “he gets his fodder again; do you know how to go to work to feed a horse?”

He held the nose-bag in his hands and looked at me as if he had strong doubts as to my efficiency.

“I have sometimes seen it done at the stopping-places,” I replied dejectedly, “but we might as well make a trial.”

“Well, then, go ahead,” he said, handing the receptacle to me.

It was with some difficulty that I got the strap which held the bag adjusted around the horse’s neck; Gustav stood behind me with a critical air.

“That ain’t right,” he said; “take the bit out first.”

He now showed me how to take the bit out of the horse’s mouth, and then made me do it.

The horse put his nose in the bag, and when he observed that there was nothing in it, he shook his ears, as much as to say, “I don’t think much of such practical jokes!” The horse seemed to share his master’s opinion of me, for Gustav was anything but satisfied, as his grunting tones proved.

“Well now, go ahead!” he said at last, scanning me once more from head to foot. From under the seat he produced a dark bundle, which upon being unfolded proved to be his mantle; he thereupon proceeded to put it around my shoulders.

“Bless us! This is heavy,” I said, groaning under the burden.

As I seized the lines Gustav imparted his final instructions. “Here is the check,” he said, putting a piece of metal with the number of my cab into my hand; “now drive to the Schlesische Bahnhof and wait there; maybe you’ll get a job when the early train comes in. Give the check to the policeman; do you understand?”

“Yes, yes,” I said; “I have often arrived by that station myself.”

“And then when you’re ready to start give him a good whack with your whip,” he continued.

“Whom?” I was about to ask once more, for I thought he was still talking of the policeman, but fortunately I suppressed my dulness.

“For when he has been standing awhile,” explained Gustav, “the nag gets awfully lazy and his bones get stiff; but when he’s going he does very well, and then all you have to do is to let him jog along.”

“Very well,” I said, seizing the whip, which he handed to me; “I’ll do precisely as you say.”

Gustav opened the gateway preparatory to setting out. I jerked the reins and called out--“Go along!”

The steed in my cab, however, did not pay the least attention to my manipulations; so far as I could see, he had fallen asleep again.

I now began to belabour his back with the whip; even that was but half successful; he gave a little shrug of disdain, and stood still as if fastened to the ground.

“You must hit around further to the front!” cried Gustav from the gate; “he don’t feel anything on his back any more!”

So I whipped him on the neck, but, lo and behold, he did not seem to approve of such treatment. He threw his head back, shook his ears as much as to say, “Have the goodness to desist from such foolishness!” And when I paid no attention to his objections, he suddenly lifted his hinder part and “thump” went his hoofs against the cab, making me shake and tremble upon my box.

Now Gustav came walking up to me slowly.

“Give it to me,” he said, taking the whip out of my hand; “I’ll have a talk with him.”

The way Gustav “talked to him” seemed to make a decided impression upon the steed, for before I knew it he started in a canter, so that I was obliged to seize the reins convulsively in both hands.

“My hat,” I shrieked, for I felt that the cocked hat was parting company with my head in a graceful curve. It was not until I was out on the street that I succeeded in quieting the excited nag.

“Dear me, this--is--a--malicious beast!” I called out breathless to Gustav, who was running after us with the hat and whip.

“He’s only a bit ticklish,” he replied consolingly.

I replaced the cocked hat upon the spot assigned to it. Gustav turned to go.

I passed along the quiet streets with my vehicle on the way to the Schlesische Bahnhof. I now had time to examine my steed more closely. He was white, with a tinge of yellow, corresponding to the colour a white beard assumes if its owner frequently moistens it with beer.

So we reached the Schlesische Bahnhof, where I joined the row of waiting cabs.

I had now reached my first station, and I sat upon my box with attentive ears, so that no word of the conversation of my new colleagues should escape me.

For the present there was little hope of accomplishing my purpose, for the only thing I heard was a grand snoring-chorus--the assembled drivers were making up for their interrupted morning’s sleep.

I tried to reason myself into the belief that the situation was very original and interesting, but the thought of my orphaned bed at home, and its discarded warmth and softness, would not be banished, and all at once the consciousness that I was cold and hungry and bored beyond endurance was borne in upon me with unrelenting sternness.

A vender of small sausages appeared upon the scene, and, although under ordinary circumstances the possibility of horse-meat would have caused me to abstain, I hastily came down from my box and purchased a pair of his charges.

“Can you give me some paper,” I said, “to wrap them up in?”

The sausage-man looked at me in surprise. “Bless my buttons,” he said,--“paper?”

I perceived that I was betraying myself. So I turned quickly away, and seeing the policeman at that moment, I handed him my check. Then I scrambled up on the box once more, and devoured the sausages. I thereupon moved into a corner of the box, wrapped myself up close in my mantle, and fell asleep. A tremendous uproar awoke me. The train had arrived; the cabs from the right and left were set in rattling motion; in the portico stood a man bellowing, “One thousand two hundred and thirty-two,” at the top of his voice. He seemed to have been occupied in this way for some time, for his face was purple with the exertion.

“Very good,” I said, smiling to myself; “there is a passenger who can’t find his cab; probably it will come to an altercation between him and the driver, and some of the most characteristic of Berlin phrases and expressions will come to light. Novelist, prick up your ears; don’t let anything escape you.”

“One thousand two hundred and thirty-two!” called out the man once more. I looked at him closely; he seemed to be a travelling merchant; a medley of trunks, bandboxes, and travelling-bags were lying about him on the ground.

I looked about me smiling. “One thousand two hundred and thirty-two seems to be sleeping as sweetly as need be,” I said to myself.

At that moment a voice struck my ear: “Twelve thirty-two--what’s the matter, old noodle-head? Are you sitting on your ears?”

Quick as a flash I turned around. One of the small boys that hang around stations to help passengers find their cabs had pulled open the door of my cab.

My stars! It occurred to me then that I myself was number one thousand two hundred and thirty-two.

Before I had time to reprove the impudent lad, the passenger, who was quite blue in the face, began to fly at me.

“Look ye here,” he cried in a loud voice, “it’s likely you left your ears at home! Here I’ve been standing an hour injuring my lungs by yelling out your confounded number!”

I was trembling with rage. “Sir,” I said, inclining my head to him from my box, “I must politely request you to address me in a more befitting manner!”

“I don’t want any of your impudence,” bellowed the azure-hued merchant. “It’s your business to prick up your ears, that’s all; and if you don’t do it, I’ll ask you to accompany me to the police-station!”

My blood was boiling with indignation, and, what was worse, I dared not reply, for fear my language would betray me.

“Boys, fetch my things!” the merchant called out to the lads who were clustering about, and all the trunks, handbags, and bandboxes were set in motion.

Meanwhile my colleagues--as many of them as had not driven away--gathered about us, and I now heard my fill of the peculiarities of the Berlin vernacular that I had previously longed for.

“Better put your spectacles on your ears, so you’ll hear better,” cried one.

I tried to keep silent--but could I let such a brutal speech pass unchallenged? “It is very bad taste,” I replied with dignity, “to reproach a person for physical infirmities; if my near-sightedness enjoins the necessity of wearing spectacles----”

“Don’t lose your breath, cabby,” cried a second, and a general laugh interrupted my speech.

“Cabby sees with his ears and hears with his eyes,” shrieked one of the wretched boys. There was a laugh again; I was perspiring with indignation.

“Take that up on the box,” cried my passenger in an insolent tone, thumping a heavy brass-nailed trunk down on my feet.

I was about to recommend greater caution when he handed me a couple of curtain-poles wrapped in paper and tied together with a cord.

“Take that too,” he commanded, “and see that it doesn’t slip down.”

So it was a provincial upholsterer who was treating me thus! In spite of that, there was nothing for it but to obey his orders. I set the curtain-poles up on end and put my left arm around them.

Now there was an uproar among the boys once more. “Cabby, hold the crow-bars tight!” cried one. “Cabby with the crow-bars!” yelled the boys, shrieking, bellowing, and whistling in a diabolical chorus.

“To the tavern ‘Green Tree’ in the Klosterstrasse!” cried the overbearing voice of the upholsterer. He got into the cab, and shut the door with a bang.

I seized the reins, the nag stood still, as if it were none of his concern.

“Go along with ye, you wretched beast! Hello there! Skip along!” I muttered between my teeth; the abominable quadruped persisted in stubborn indifference. I brought the whip down upon him “toward the front,” as Gustav had advised me, and, sure enough, suddenly the cab quivered, struck with the hoofs of the balking steed.

An infernal concert of wild jubilations arose about me. I sat upon my box in a state of wretched helplessness, and, to make matters worse, the travelling merchant put his head out of the cab.

“How long is it going to take you to get started?” he called out, following up his words with a perfect volley of oaths. “Did anybody ever see the like of this?”

One of my colleagues of the box was moved with brotherly pity, seized the malicious steed by the head, and put him in motion.

* * * * *

The other drivers sat on their boxes taking a nap, and there was no opportunity of entering into conversation with them. I was very much depressed, took off my mantle, for it was growing warm, climbed up into my seat, and drove away to try my luck elsewhere.

As we were jolting slowly across the Schlossplatz, there came straight across the square from the red Schloss a figure, the sight of which made my blood run cold--it was my friend Otto.

Supposing he should recognise me,--I dared not think the thought, I felt myself blush and then turn pale under my beard. I turned my head to the other side, toward the Schloss, but as I involuntarily looked at him askance, it seemed to me that he was standing still. In fact so he was,--he stood there beckoning to me! I was seized with horror! “Beckon away as hard as you please,” I said to myself, driving on. Now I heard his voice: “Hello there, cabman!” I pretended not to hear, and still drove on.

Then he came rushing with tremendous strides across the square.

“Confound you!” he cried. “Don’t you hear me?”

There was no further possibility of escape; I must needs pull up.

Like a criminal over whom sentence of death has just been passed, I hung my head; with the corner of my left eye I saw that my friend Otto had on his best suit, and was carrying his summer overcoat over his arm.

“Kanonierstrasse No.----,” he said, jumping airily into the cab. I started involuntarily. What did he want to go to the Kanonierstrasse for? I knew that he did not live there--none of our boon companions lived there, I knew that also,--but some one dwelt within that house whom I knew very well, and that was Emma, my friend of the ballet, my Emma! That Emma was true, true as gold, I knew, thank Heaven! At the same time a vague unrest took possession of me, and in flying haste did I urge my steed in the direction of the Kanonierstrasse.

I riveted my eyes upon the house long before we reached it. Did my suspicion deceive me? Up there between the hyacinths did I not see some one look out? The wheels of my cab came rattling up before the door, no further mistake was possible; out of Emma’s window inclined a head with raven curls--it was hers! At the same moment my friend Otto impetuously pulled open the door of the cab, jumped out, and threw kisses to her. Then he put his hand to his mouth and called out: “I’ll wait for you down here with the cab. Come down, and we will have a drive in the Thiergarten.”

I fell back into the corner of my seat. This was too much! The wretch! My own faithless beloved I was to take on a drive in the Thiergarten!

Through my horn spectacles I cast one annihilating glance above; it fell upon no one, for Emma had left the window.

For a moment I considered--should I tear the wig, spectacles, and beard from off my face, and so drop my disguise before the traitors? But the ridicule, the eternal ridicule! It seemed to me the whole Kanonierstrasse would stand on its head in appreciation of the joke.

“Turn the top down,” commanded my friend Otto. “It is stifling in here.”

Worse and worse! But what could I do? I scrambled down and began to do as I was bid. Meanwhile the street-door opened and Emma floated across the threshold. A sombre oath escaped me.

“Now drive to the Thiergarten,” said my friend Otto.

“Very well,” I replied, with terrible irony in my savage voice.

The wretched couple behind my back seemed to be in the best of spirits, and as the cab was now open I could understand every word they spoke.

“Did you receive my post-card?” asked the villain.

“Of course I did,” replied the faithless one. “I did not know he was going out of town. Are you quite sure he’s gone? I’m in mortal terror.”

“Never fear, my love,” he replied; “I was in his rooms this morning. He must have left very early.”

I was furious. So this was the meaning of his interested questions the night before!

Full of wrath I brought down my whip upon my horse.

“Don’t beat that horse so!” cried my friend Otto from the cab; “we are in no particular hurry.”

I burst into a roar of hysterical laughter. The villain! he was pitiful toward the horse, more than toward his friend. Again the nag was called upon to bear the brunt of my indignation at my friend Otto.

“The fellow must be mad,” said my friend Otto.

“Don’t talk so loud,” begged Emma.

“Nonsense,” he replied. “I told you that he is as deaf as a poker; moreover, look at him. I believe he has false hair!”

My wig had evidently become dislocated. I heard them giggle. For a moment I considered the propriety of turning my whip to good purpose behind me--but that of course would have betrayed me.

The noise of passing carriages on Leipzigerstrasse made it impossible for me to hear what was passing between the couple; it was not until we had reached more quiet streets that I again caught some bits of their conversation. I perceived that I was again the subject thereof.

“How do you get along with him?” asked my friend Otto.

“Oh well,” responded Emma, “he’s a good enough fellow.”

Whack,--the nag caught it again then, for the tone in which she said it roused my ire.

“That’s so,” continued my friend Otto; “but he is a bore, an intolerable bore.”

The knave! With bated breath I listened to hear what she would reply to this calumny.

Emma giggled; that was as much as to say, “You are right.”

I was in a fever of wrath.

“Does he ever read any of his things to you?” asked my friend Otto.

“Does he write?” she queried in surprise. The uneducated goose! The superficial hussy! Did she not know that I had already published two volumes of lyrical poetry? And she asks if I write!

“I should think so,” replied my friend Otto, with an infamous roar of laughter. “Every little while he hatches a new poem a yard or two long, and reads it to his friends.”

Emma shook with laughter.

“So far he has spared me,” she observed.

“Never fear, my love, never fear,” I muttered into my false beard; “you shan’t have any more opportunity to be bored by me!”

In my mind I was composing the crushing farewell-note I intended to write to the faithless one on the morrow.

After a time which seemed endless to me we reached the garden restaurant called “Charlottenhof.”

“Hold on, driver!” bellowed my friend Otto, who, taking me to be deaf, considered it necessary to address me in his loudest tones. Then he turned to Emma.

“Come, sweetheart,” he said, “we will have a glass of beer.” He helped her get down. “Wait till we come back,” he said to me. At the gate stood a waiter: “Fetch a glass of beer for the driver,” he added, and before I had time to enter protest he had stepped into the garden, arm-in-arm with his lady-love.

Fully an hour and a half did my friend Otto see best to keep me waiting at the door, while he was amusing himself in the garden with his adored.

I occupied myself with writing my obituary in spirit, and tears of emotion over my sad fate trickled down my beard. “By the fickleness of a heartless woman”--thus read the last page of my obituary--“and the depravity of a man whom he took to be his friend, was this poet’s heart broken, and this glorious possibility of immeasurable promise for Germany was nipped in the bud.”

_Ernst von Wildenbruch._

_BON-MOTS._

EVERYBODY is a genius, at least once in his life. The only difference is that the so called geniuses have their good ideas thicker. This shows how wise it is to put everything on paper.

IT always grieves me when a man of talent dies, for earth has more need of him than heaven.

THIS book had the effect which all good books have: it made the dull duller, the wise wiser, and the other millions remained unchanged.

ONE of the greatest discoveries which human reason has made in modern times is, in my opinion, the art of judging books without having read them.

HE had a couple of warts on his nose in a position which made them likely to be mistaken for the heads of nails, by means of which that feature might have been fastened to his face.

IT is no art to say a thing in few words when you have something to say, like Tacitus. But when you have nothing to say, and write a big book, that’s what I call merit.

HE combined the qualities of the greatest men in history: he carried his head on one side like Alexander the Great, he was always scratching his head like Cæsar, he could drink coffee like Leibnitz, and when he was comfortable in his easy-chair he would forget to eat and drink like Newton, and like him it was often necessary to wake him.

“OUR forests are growing thinner, the supply of wood is declining, what shall we do?” Oh, when our forests are used up there is surely nothing to hinder our burning books until there is a new supply.

OF all commodities in the market there is none more remarkable than books. Printed by persons who do not understand them; sold by people who do not understand them; bound, reviewed, and read by people who do not understand them; and, best of all, written by people who do not understand them.

HE was a most meritorious boy: before he was six years old he could say the Lord’s Prayer backwards.

I HAVE found throughout life that when all other means fail there is nothing that will give you a surer clue to a man’s character than a joke which he takes amiss.

I SUPPOSE there is no man in the world who, if he turns thief for a thousand thalers, would not for half the money have preferred to remain the honest fellow he was.

WHOSOEVER says he hates all kinds of flattery, and says it in good faith, has surely not become acquainted with all kinds, in matter or in form. To be sure, people of sense hate ordinary flattery, because they must necessarily feel mortified at the amount of credulity with which the flatterer credits them. That is, they hate ordinary flattery, because to them it is no flattery. According to my experience, there is no very great difference in human nature. Each has his own coin for which he will sell himself. It is human invention to differentiate between human beings; it is pride which supports these distinctions. Nobility of soul is very much of a piece with nobility of birth.

TO make persons of discernment believe that you are somewhat which you are not is as a general thing more difficult than to become what you would appear to be.

IF you would know what other people think about an affair which concerns you, consider what you would think of them under like circumstances. Do not take any one for more moral in this matter than you are, or for more credulous. This remark is more than half true, and this is saying a great deal for a maxim which a person lays down in his thirtieth year, as I do this one.

ONE may rail at the faults of a great man, but one must not rail at the man for all that.

IT is safe to take it as a sure sign that you are growing better when paying your debts gives you as much pleasure as making money.

VIRTUE which is the result of good intention is not worth much. Impulse or custom is the thing.

THAT a false hypothesis is often to be preferred to the true one is shown by the theory of the freedom of human volition. Certainly we are not free, but it requires a very profound study of philosophy not to be misled by this knowledge. Freedom is the easiest explanation, and will remain the most popular one because appearances are for it.--_Lichtenberg._

THE story was told how St. Dionysius, after he had been beheaded, walked two miles with his head in his hand. “Two miles?” asked one of the company. “Yes, two miles; there is not the least doubt of it,” was the reply. “I will gladly believe you,” said a lady, wittier than the others; “on such occasions it is only the first step which is difficult.”

THE French ambassador came to Charles V. with the request that Milan should be ceded to his master the king. Whereupon the emperor merely replied, “The wish of my brother, the King of France, is my own.”

THE Duchess of Klingston desired to be admitted to the court circle at Berlin. She requested the Russian minister to take occasion to assure the king of her high esteem, and to tell him that she had been heard to say her fortune was in Rome, her fleet at Venice, and her heart in Berlin. When the king heard this he quickly responded with, “My compliments to the Duchess, and tell her I greatly fear she has favoured us with the least of her possessions.”

A GREAT gentleman said to his servant in a moment of caprice, “Tell me, John, supposing the devil should come to get one of us, which one do you think he would take?”

“He’d take me, without a doubt, your honour.”

“Why so, you absurd fellow?”

“Because he has some chance of losing me, but he is quite sure of you,” was the reply.

A WITTY king, in travelling through his lands, passed a small provincial town in which great honour was shown him by the magistrate and burgomaster, the latter greeting the monarch in a solemn address. The most conspicuous thing about the portly little man was the well-rounded expansion of his spotless white vest. The day was very cold, and the speech was interminable. Suddenly the king interrupted the speaker, and, as if concerned about his health, pointing to the snowy vest, he graciously remarked, “My dear sir, I fear your _Mont Blanc_ will catch cold!”

THE presence of a university makes the country stupid for miles about.--_Börne._

WITH them (the troubadours) it is always the winter that goes and the spring that comes, and the _ennui_ that remains.--_Schiller._

IF called upon to choose between the pangs of conscience and the pangs of toothache I should unhesitatingly choose the former.

IN other countries when a citizen becomes dissatisfied with his government he emigrates, in France he requests the government to emigrate.--_Heine._

_THE EARLY DAYS OF A GENIUS._

THE ancients considered it as a piece of rare good fortune if the gods permitted a person to be born in a celebrated town. As, however, this good fortune has not befallen some very celebrated men, since Bethlehem, Eisleben, Stratford, Kamenz, and Marbach were not originally brilliant points in the thoughts of men, I trust Hans Unwirrsch was not put out by the fact of first seeing the light of day in a small town called Neustadt. There are not a few towns and boroughs bearing the same name; but they have never quarrelled over the honour of counting our hero among their citizens. Johannes Jakob Nikolaus Unwirrsch did not make his birthplace any more celebrated in the world.

Ten thousand inhabitants did this poor little town have in 1819; to-day it has one hundred and fifty more. It lay, and still lies, in a broad valley, surrounded by hills and mountains, down the sides of which the forest comes straggling into the precincts of the town. In spite of its name it is no longer new; painfully has it struggled along through stormy centuries, and is now enjoying a peaceful, sleepy old age. The hope of making a mark in the world it has gradually given up, and feels none the less contented for this. The sound of its church-bells makes an agreeable impression upon the wanderer, as he steps out of the woods on the nearest hill-top; and when it so happens that the sun is mirrored in the windows of the two churches and the houses, this same wanderer seldom remembers that all is not gold that glitters, and that evening-bells, fruitful fields, green meadows, and a pretty little town in a valley, is not enough by far to make an idyl. Amyntas, Palæmon, Daphnis, and Doris often lead anything but an idyllic life in the valley below. As the fleecing of lambs and sheep had gone somewhat out of fashion, people were reduced to pitching into each other’s wool, and sometimes fleeced each other with a will. But there was much marrying and giving in marriage, and altogether people passed through life with a measure of comfort; that they found living not particularly dear, bore a part in this happy consummation. The devil take things when fruit and cider fail, and milk and honey is rare in Arcadia!

But we shall probably have further opportunity to lose words about this here and there, and if not it is no matter. For the present we must turn back to the young Arcadian, Hans Unwirrsch, and see how he finds his way about in life.

A very uneducated woman was the wife of the shoemaker. She could read and write in an exigency, but her philosophical education had been completely neglected; she wept easily, and with pleasure. Born in darkness, she remained in darkness; suckled her child, set him on his feet, and taught him to walk--put him on his feet for life, and taught him to walk for life. That is great praise, and the most cultured mother can do no more for her child.

In a low, dark room, into which but little fresh air and still less sunshine came, did Hans awake to consciousness; and that was well in one respect. Later on he was not too much afraid of the caves, in which by far the greater part of humanity partaking of the blessings of civilisation are obliged to spend their lives. All his life he took light and air for what they are, luxuries which fate gives or denies, and which it seems to deny more willingly than to give.

The room on the street-side, which had at the same time been Meister Anton’s workshop, was kept unchanged in its former condition. With anxious care did the widow see to it that none of the tools belonging to the deceased were moved. Her uncle Grünebaum had declared his willingness to purchase all the unnecessary implements at an acceptable price; but Frau Christine could not bring herself to sell a single piece. In all her leisure hours she sat at her wonted seat beside the shoemaker’s work-table, and in the evening it was, as we know, only by the light of the glass-ball that she could knit or sew or read her hymnal.

The poor woman worked hard to gain an honest living for herself and her child. In the little bedroom, the windows of which looked out into the yard, she lay many a night wakeful and anxious, while Hans Unwirrsch in his father’s large bedstead was dreaming of the large rolls and buttered slices of bread that the neighbours’ happy children enjoyed. Wise Meister Grünebaum did what he could by his relatives, but he was not very successful in his trade; he was too fond of delivering long speeches at the ale-house; and his customers were more willing to give him a pair of shaky boots to be mended than to order a new pair of him. It was with difficulty that he kept his head above water; but he was never chary about giving advice, indeed he gave it gladly and in large quantities, and unfortunately we must call attention to the not unusual fact that the quantity stood for the most part in no proper relation to the quality. Cousin Schlotterbeck, though by no means so wise as Meister Grünebaum, was more practical, and it was upon _her_ advice that Frau Christine became a washerwoman, getting up in the morning between two and three, and returning at night tired and aching, to still the primary, physical hunger of her child, and translate his dreams into reality.

Hans Unwirrsch retained faint, odd, and uncertain memories of this period of his life, which he has reported to his nearest friends. He had a light sleep from early youth, and so he often awoke by the light of a match, with which in cold, dark nights of winter his mother lit her lamp to prepare for her early walk. He lay in his warm pillow, and did not stir until his mother bent over him to see if she had awakened the little sleeper by the pattering of her slippers. Then he would throw his arms about her neck and laugh, while she gave him a kiss and an exhortation to go quickly to sleep again, for the day was far distant. This exhortation he would obey at once, or else later. In the latter case he looked at the burning lamp through his half-closed eye-lids, and at his mother and the shadows on the wall.

Strange it is that all his recollections seem to be of winter; there was a misty atmosphere about the flame of the lamp; his breath made a cloud between him and the light; the frozen window-panes glittered, it was bitter cold, and the comfort he felt in his safe, warm bed was intermingled with terror of the bitter cold without, which made him pull the blanket over his nose.

He never could understand why his mother got up so early, while it was so dark and so cold, and while such queer, black shadows were gliding along the wall, nodding, rising, and bending. Still more vague were his thoughts about the places his mother went to; in accordance with his momentary mood, he pictured them more or less pleasantly, mingling in all sorts of details taken from fairy-tales, and fragments out of the conversations of grown persons that he had overheard, and which in these misty moments between sleeping and waking took on more and more of a gaudy colouring.

At last his mother was dressed, and once more she bent over the child’s bed. Again he received a kiss, a great deal of good advice, and many enticing promises, if he would lie still, not cry, and go to sleep again. The assurance was added that the morning, and with it Cousin Schlotterbeck, would be coming ere long; the lamp was blown out, the room grew dark, the door creaked, the steps of his mother passed away; soon he was fast asleep, and when he awoke again Cousin Schlotterbeck was generally sitting by his bedside, and in the adjoining room he could hear the fire crackle in the stove.

Cousin Schlotterbeck, although she was not much older than Frau Christine Unwirrsch, had always been Cousin Schlotterbeck. No one in the Kröppelstrasse knew her by any other designation, and she was as well known in the Kröppelstrasse as the “old Fritz,” as the Emperor Napoleon, and old Blücher, although she had no further resemblance to these celebrated heroes than that she used snuff like the Prussian king, and had a hooked nose like the “Corsican bloodhound.”

Of right she should have filled a chapter by herself in this book, for she had a gift of which not every one can boast: to her the dead had not departed this earth; she saw them walk the streets, she met them on the market-place as one sees the living, and comes upon them unexpectedly around the corner. There was nothing weird about this to her; she spoke of it as of something quite natural and unsurprising, and to her there was no difference whatever between the Burgomaster Eckerlein, who had died in the year 1769, and often met her in his wig and red velvet coat near the apothecary’s shop, and the grandson of this man, who owned this same apothecary’s shop in the year 1820, and who was now looking out of the window with no faculty for seeing his grandfather walking below.

Even in the minds of Cousin Schlotterbeck’s acquaintances this strange “gift” of hers no longer awakened horror. The unbelieving ceased scoffing at it, and the believing--of whom there was a goodly number--did not cross themselves any more. Upon the character of the good little woman this high favour had no perverting influence. She was not made supercilious by her marvellous seer’s gift; she took it as an undeserved favour of God, and remained more humble than many other people who did not see nearly as much as the oldish spinster in the Kröppelstrasse.

As far as her external appearance is concerned, Cousin Schlotterbeck was of medium height, but she stooped perceptibly, and walked with a far-protruding head. Her clothes hung about her like something that does not belong there, and her nose was, as we have said, very sharp and very hooked. It would have impressed one disagreeably, this nose would, if it had not been for the eyes. But her eyes did penance for every sin her nose committed; they were remarkable eyes, and saw remarkable things. Clear and beaming they were up to her old age,--blue, young eyes in an old, old, dried-up face! Hans Unwirrsch never forgot them, although he looked into much more beautiful eyes in his life.

To learning, Cousin Schlotterbeck was devoted in a naïve way. She had a tremendous admiration for wisdom, and particularly for theological wisdom; little Hans was indebted to her for an introduction to all the erudition of which he made himself more or less a possessor in later times. She could tell fairy-tales which would have delighted the hearts of the Brothers Grimm, and when the wicked queen put the golden pin into her stepdaughter’s head, Hans Unwirrsch felt the point of it piercing through to his very diaphragm.

Hans and the cousin were inseparable during the first years of the boy’s life. From early morning till late at night the ghost-seer took the part of a mother to the child; without her advice and help did nothing occur which related to him; many a time did she appease his hunger, and many a more subtle hunger did she awake in him.

Hans Unwirrsch was a precocious child, and learned to talk almost before he walked; reading was to him but play. Cousin Schlotterbeck understood this difficult art very well, and managed to stumble through the most incomprehensible big words.

She liked to read aloud, and indulged in a nasal eloquence which was very impressive to the child. Her library consisted principally of a Bible, a hymnal, and a long row of almanacs standing in unbroken line from the year 1790, each of which contained a touching, or comic, or sensational narrative, as well as a goodly stock of receipts and nostrums, and a fine collection of funny anecdotes. For a susceptible childish imagination there lay a world of rare wonder in these old pamphlets, and spirits of all kinds arose out of them, smiling, grinning, threatening, and leading the young soul through various horrors and delights. A still greater impression, however, did the “book of books,” the Bible, make upon the boy. With shuddering rapture did Hans sit at the feet of his cousin, and dive into the mysteries of chaos; the earth was void and empty, until the light came dividing the darkness and the water under the land from the water over the land. When sun, moon, and stars began their dance, and signs, times, days, and years appeared, then he breathed anew; and when the earth brought forth grass, and leaves, and fruit-trees, and when the water, and the air, and the earth began to be peopled with moving and living animals, then he clapped his little hands, and felt ground under him once more.

But his days did not pass only with reading and listening to stories. As soon as Hans Unwirrsch did not throw his hands about aimlessly any more, or put them into his mouth, his mother and cousin made haste to introduce him to the great principle of labour. Cousin Schlotterbeck was an ingenious woman, who managed to earn an extra penny by dressing dolls for a large factory, an occupation which was interesting enough for a child, and in which Hans liked to be helpful. Ladies and gentlemen, peasants and shepherds, and many other little personages of various social positions and ages, arose under the skilful fingers of his cousin, who worked away bravely with glue and with her needle, with bright bits of cloth and gilt paper, of which she gave a proper share to each, in exact proportion to the price. It was a philosophical occupation, which left one free to harbour a great many ideas, and Hans Unwirrsch took kindly to it, although, of course, his childish pleasure in the toys was soon lost. He who has grown up in a shop of Jack-in-the-boxes, takes little pleasure in each individual Jack-in-the-box, be he ever so gaudy and agile in turning up his toes.

After Martinmas, which momentous day unfortunately could not be celebrated with roast goose, Cousin Schlotterbeck devoted herself to independent fabrication. She could very profitably apply her talent to plastic art; she formed little men out of raisins, to be sold at Christmas, and for more humble minds she made churls out of dried plums. The first fellow of this latter kind, who was manufactured by Hans without help, gave him as much pleasure as the hopeful art student experiences at the sight of the picture which gained him the _prix de Rome_.

In his fifth year Johannes Jakob Nikolaus Unwirrsch was a little awkward fellow, in a pair of breeches which had been cut and designed for him to grow into. Out of bluish-grey eyes he looked merrily into the world and into the Kröppelstrasse, his nose had nothing characteristic as yet, his mouth promised fair to grow very large, and kept its promise. The yellow hair of the boy curled naturally, and was the prettiest thing about him. He had in every respect an excellent stomach, like all people who are designed to hunger a great deal in life; he got through with his A B C with no more difficulty than with the biggest slice of brown bread and with the fullest soup plate. The two women, his mother and his cousin, spoiled him, of course, to the best of their ability, and honoured him as crown-prince, hero, and world’s wonder, so that it was well when the Government interfered, and declared him old enough to go to school. Hans Unwirrsch set his foot on the lowest round of the ladder, which stands by the fruitful tree of knowledge, the door of the poor-school opened to him, and Silberlöffel, the schoolmaster, promised Cousin Schlotterbeck at the door that her “precious boy” should neither be murdered by himself nor by the hundred and sixty good-for-nothings who were subject to his rule.

“Cousin” departed with a corner of her apron up to her eyes, and would not be comforted, until near the town well she met the pastor Primarius Holzapfel, who had died in the year eighteen hundred and fifteen, attired in his black surplice, with an enormous ruff about his neck, and a Bible in his hand. “Cousin” had been well acquainted with the pastor and his parents. His father had been a woodcutter, and his mother had died in the Hospital of the Holy Spirit; Primarius the pastor, with whose praise the town still rung, had occupied the very place in the poor-school to which Silberlöffel was taking little Hans.

In a dark street, in a one-storey building, which had once been an engine-house, the community had instituted a school for poor children, after having refused for a long time to give up any building for so superfluous an object. It was a damp hole; almost at any time of day you could see the water run down the walls; fungi flourished in the corners and under the teacher’s desk. The tables and benches were moist and sticky, and during vacation they were always covered with a thin coating of mould. The windows it would be best not to mention; it was no wonder if in their vicinity there were also interesting growths of fungus. Neither was it a wonder if in the extremities of the teacher rheumatic knots formed, and in his lungs the most exquisite tubercles. It was no wonder if at times half of the pupils were ill with a fever. If the community had been called upon to put a marble monument on every child’s grave which was dug in the churchyard by its guilt, it would soon have supplied a new building for the school.

Karl Silberlöffel was the name the teacher signed to the receipts for the enormous sums which he received quarterly from the State. Alas, the poor fellow had received this name as it were by the irony of fate; he had not been born with a silver spoon in his mouth. How can the Government be expected to bother about the schoolmaster Silberlöffel so long as the question as to what is the smallest possible amount of knowledge that may be permitted to the lower classes without harm and discomfort to the higher is still unsolved? For a long time to come the gentlemen puzzling over this question will consider the common schoolmasters as their enemies, and will look upon it as an absurd and altogether preposterous demand when dangerous and revolutionary idealists require them to do good unto their enemies, and at least dress them decently and feed them tolerably well.

Later in life our hero often invited the country schoolmaster at Grunzenow to his Sunday dinner or his Christmas punch, remembering these first school-days and the poor-teacher Silberlöffel. Neither did he object when the schoolmaster on the Baltic put some of the good, nourishing things set before him into his pocket for his seven boys at home; he himself would fetch him an old paper to wrap them in, and help him crowd the bundle into his coat pocket.

In the engine house at Neustadt the girls sat on the right-hand side and the boys on the left. Between these two divisions there was a passage from the door up to the teacher’s desk, and in this passage Silberlöffel walked, coughing, up and down, without one of his charge being moved thereby to pity. Long, very long, was the poor fellow; thin, very thin, was he; very melancholy did he look, and he had good cause.

Another in his place would have raised his spirits, and warmed himself in the damp, cold room by lustily whipping the boys; but he was beyond that even. His faint ventures in this line were considered as a good joke merely; his authority was below zero. A pitiful reproach to all well-dressed people were the garments of this worthy man; especially the hat acted a perfect tragedy with its possessor. The point between the two was which should survive the other, and the hat seemed to know that it would carry the prize. A diabolical taunt seemed to grin from out of its boils and scratches. The villain knew that it would also survive the successor of the consumptive man; it was utterly indifferent to the mould and the dampness of the engine-house.