Part 28

Roars of laughter shook the building. The teacher made great efforts to define his position, but could not obtain a hearing. The whole company were but too glad to see the conversation--which had become almost serious--turn into this comical by-way. All he could do was to protest that he had never intended to rank children and cattle alike.

"Oh, of course not!" said Buchmaier. "Why, you kissed Mat's Johnnie to-day, and that's more than anybody does to a beast. But now it seems as if I was three times more certain than ever that these cruelty-to-animals societies are like tying up the hens' tails,--as if they didn't carry them upright, anyhow."

The tide of merriment swelled into a torrent, and what it carried on its bosom was not all of dainty texture. The teacher was not in a mood to be carried away by the current: on the contrary, it harassed and worried him. He soon quitted the inn with that gnawing sensation which befalls us when we have been misunderstood because not heard to the end. He perceived how difficult it is to lead an assemblage of grown persons through the profound and exhaustive analysis of any subject. But, leaving this train of thought, he soon suffered himself to suppose that he had met with that phase of barbarism which consists not in the absence of polish, but in the conceited disdain of culture and refinement. He was much mortified. The resolution to confine himself exclusively to the companionship of docile childhood and of uncorrupted nature was confirmed in his mind.

Next day (Saturday) the teacher called on the councilmen, but found none of them at home. His last errand was to the old schoolmaster, whose house he found at the lower end of a pretty garden which opened on the road. The beds were measured with lead and string, and skirted with box; the hedge of beech which enclosed the whole was smoothly shorn, and, at regular intervals, little stems rose over the hedge, crowned with spherical foliage. In the midst was a rotunda, forming a natural basin, girt with box and garnished with all sorts of buds and flowers. At the foot of the garden, near the arbor, voices were heard in conversation. Advancing in that direction, he said to the two men whom he found there,--

"Can I see Mr. Schoolmaster?"

"Two of 'em: ha, ha!" said the elder, who was without a coat, and had a hoe in his hand.

"I mean the old schoolmaster."

"That's me; and this is the Jew teacher: ha, ha!" answered the man with the hoe, pointing to his companion, who was dressed as befits the Sabbath.

"I am glad to have the pleasure of meeting you also. Have we not seen each other before?"

"Yes,--when you were conversing with the squire."

The old gentleman threw away his hoe, took his pipe out of his mouth, and seized his coat, for the purpose of putting it on,--a design against the execution of which our friend interfered.

"We must not stand upon ceremony," said he: "we are colleagues. I am the new teacher. Is this garden your property?"

"Ha, ha! 'should think it was," replied he. Every word he said was accompanied with a peculiar chuckle, which appeared to come from his inmost soul. "Welcome to Nordstetten," he added, extending his hand, and shaking that of the newcomer with a grip which reminded him of Goetz von Berlichingen.

The Jewish teacher stood rubbing his hands in great embarrassment. He knew not whether to offer his hand or not. He feared to be thought obtrusive, as he was not the object of the visit; and, again, he was disposed to resent this want of attention as a slight, and dreaded lest his dignity should be compromised by an advance on his part.

These mingled feelings--the fear of obtrusiveness and ill-will on the one hand, and of excessive sensitiveness on the other--are the two thieves between which Jew is crucified in the conventional intercourse of European society, and must continue to be so until his social position shall become firm and well defined.

Like all educated Jews of the older generation, the Jewish teacher was conversant with the text of the Bible, and never forgot the maxims, "Love the stranger, for ye were strangers also in the land of Egypt," and, "Offend not the stranger, for ye know his thoughts." He remembered the pleasure he had himself derived, years before, from a smiling welcome. Thus he stood, his lips moving silently, and the muscles of his face twitching. At length he stepped up to the new-comer, extended his hand, and expressed his pleasure in his arrival. The stranger said, "You would certainly do me a great favor, gentlemen, by giving me some advice in reference to my line of conduct. I know no one here."

"I can understand that very well," replied the Jewish teacher. "I also came here for no other reason than that I was sent by the consistory, and did not know a soul. I often longed for a charm to make myself _incognito_ for a while, so as to study closely the character of the parents; for, without the parents to help you, nothing is to be done with the children. What made matters particularly difficult for me was that it became my duty, twenty-five years ago, to organize a regular school,--a matter till then entirely unknown among the Jews. At first it seemed to me that I had been spirited into a strange world by enchantment."

"Yes, you came into an enchantment soon enough, and married the prettiest girl in the village: ha, ha! And so you ought," fell in the old man. Turning to our friend, he continued,--"You must marry a girl from our village, too."

The new teacher recoiled in such haste as to set his foot ruinously into one of the immaculate flower-beds. After stammering out an apology, he said, "I only refer to my relations with the parents and the children."

"Be strict with them: that's the main point," said the old gentleman, repairing the damage with the hoe. "As to the new ways of teaching, I don't understand them. They ask the children, 'Who made the table?'--just as if they didn't know that without teaching. And then they give only the sounds of h, k, l, m, like the dumb, and the alphabet's gone out of fashion entirely."

"Strict, you say?" interposed the new teacher, to avoid the shoals and quicksands of a discussion.

"Yes. Of all the men running about the village now, there's not one who hasn't had his good salting down from me many and many a time; and I leave it to you whether they don't respect me to this day."

"Most certainly," responded the Jewish teacher, smiling. The old gentleman went on:--"And when there's a festivity in the village it won't do to play the gentleman of refinement and look on a while to see how the ignorant vulgar amuse themselves; but you must go in and help them. I've been the wildest among 'em all. The barber's dance they learned from me, and the seven-league jump I always led them in, with my Madge: my legs itch when I think of it."

"You were born and bred here, and had no need of establishing a reputation."

"I was not born and bred here. All this country fell to Wurtemberg in the year five: before that time it had belonged to Austria. I was born at Freiburg."

"You have seen much of life?"

"I should think so. People that are thirty years old nowadays don't know any thing of the world, for now every thing rolls as smoothly as a tenpin-alley. I don't refer to you: but what can a teacher be expected to know nowadays? Where has he been in the world? In books up to the eyes. Every thing runs like clock-work now, and it's one, two, three, pupil, student, teacher. I was a soldier, a musician, and a court clerk, in the lands of many rulers. I have gone through with Russians, and Frenchmen, and Saxons, and other deviltry. I began a copy-book here, in the finest of German text; and when I'd got as far as F, down came those lubberly Frenchmen, and they turned all our German text into French; and there was an end of it."

Leaning on his hoe, he went on to tell the two grand stories of his life,--the one of a pot containing two hundred florins, which he had buried in the cellar, but which the French discovered notwithstanding, and the other of how, on a bitter cold winter's day, he had gone with the parson to Eglesthal to administer extreme unction to an old woman, and they were met by a Cossack, who relieved the teacher of his mittens of fox's skin. An elaborate description of the mittens was interrupted by the stroke of eleven, which put an end to the colloquy. Our friend walked with the Jewish teacher to the Eagle, where he had taken board.

Next morning the new teacher's performance on the organ attracted great admiration. From various groups which formed as the congregation were leaving the church, the remark was heard,--

"He's 'most as good as the old teacher."

He sought out the latter, and requested him to officiate in the afternoon.

The old man laughed with joy, and said at last, in the short, broken sentences usual to him, "Oh, yes! young folks can learn something if they wish to. I was sub-organist in the Freiburg Cathedral for two years and a half: ha, ha! Yes, the last professor drove me out of the church. I didn't go there for a whole year: I couldn't stand his squeaking; and even after that I only went to mass, and to hear the sermon: when the singing began I had to run away."

He played in the afternoon; but the bizarre and fantastic movements he made on the sacred instrument caused the young man more than once to shake his head. The rest of the auditory, however, gave tokens of unalloyed satisfaction.

For his attention to the old teacher the new one was greatly praised; while he was blamed in the same degree for calling on the councilmen on a weekday, when he might have known they could not be found at home. Of both praise and blame the teacher remained equally unconscious.

On Monday the school began. The parson, a man of pleasing manners and high tone of character, introduced the teacher to his new sphere of duties with a pithy address, in the presence of the entire council and committee of citizens.

From this day forth the teacher ceased to take his dinner at the public house: the noise and confusion of the place disturbed him, and he wished to be left to himself after the unruly tribe of children was dismissed. In fact, he lived a life of entire seclusion: the duties of his station were consciensciously performed, but beyond that he studiously avoided all society. At rare intervals only would he take a walk in company with the Jewish teacher or with the old one. The latter he soon fathomed. In the mind of the former the foreground was occupied by the political and social affairs of his brethren, and he found but little congenial to his own turn of thinking. The remainder of the citizens--even Buchmaier himself--were as much strangers to him as before he had entered the village. He never went to the inn, nor ever joined the knots of talkers assembled in front of some of the houses, after dark. When school was over, he rambled alone through the woods and fields, sketched the landscape, or took notes of his thoughts and feelings. In the evening he read, or practised on his violin.

As we cannot produce copies of his drawings nor repeat his musical performances, we must content ourselves with a copy of his reflections, under the title given them by the author himself.

"WISDOM IN THE FIELDS.

"(Lying on the grass.) Every resuscitation is mingled with remnants of decay which it displaced. Look at the pastures in spring, and you will find many a day blade of last year's growth amid the fresh grass of the present: its destiny is to wither away and serve as manure for future crops. When fools perceive this, they say, 'There is no spring, and there never will be: look at these wilted wisps.' Is it not the same case with all intellectual growth? Is not the old schoolmaster a blade of dry grass of this sort?

* * * * *

"To me all nature is but a symbol of the mind: it appears like a mere mask, behind which the mind is hidden. These poor peasants! They live in this free growth of nature with the same feelings as if they inhabited a dead-house: in all the fields and woods they see nothing but the profit, the number of sheaves, the sacks of potatoes, the cords of wood: I alone inhale the spiritual essence that breathes from it all. Let me turn my eyes from these human grubs who creep sightlessly through all this splendor; let me elevate my thoughts above this paltry traffic, and as the bee makes honey from the spiked thistle which the ass merely swallows, so let me derive the sweet intellectual savor out of all things. Assist me, thou Eternal Mind, and let me not be like those who cleave to the sod until the sod rolls over their coffins! And you, ye master-minds of my nation, whose works have followed me hither, strengthen me, and let me sit at your feet continually.

* * * * *

"Every patch of ground has its history. Could any one unravel the mutations which transferred it from hand to hand, and the fortunes and sentiments of those who tilled it, he would understand the history of the human race; while its geological structure, traced to the centre of the earth, would unfold all the developments of the earth's formation.

* * * * *

"Every thing on earth becomes the food, or in some way the consumption, of something else: man alone appropriates all things, himself remaining free and unsubdued until the earth opens and swallows up his body. This brings me, by a way of my own, to the commonplace remark that man is the lord of the earth. But there is really no other truth but that self-acquired knowledge which we attain by the labor of our own spirits.

* * * * *

"I once heard, or read, that it is only where the number of domestic animals exceeds that of human beings that a state of society obtains in which all may be comfortable and none need be wretched.

"Is there a parallel truth,--that the number of irrational men must always be greater than that of men of reason?

"A dreadful thing to think of! And yet----

* * * * *

"It is clear that agriculture was the beginning and the first occasion of civilization. As long as men depended on hunting and fishing, they were but like the beasts, who _seek_ their subsistence. It was when they began to _prepare_ their food, by observing and directing the natural laws of vegetation, planting and nursing, that they first attached themselves to particular spots, and were impelled to study the elements and their combinations, and to exert an influence upon the world without and the world within them.

"Agriculture is the root of all civilization; and yet the agriculturists of the known world have never tasted but a small portion of its fruits. Is this unavoidable?

* * * * *

"Upon the unsteady flower that rocks in the breeze the bee makes her perch and gathers her honey: thus man enjoys the fleeting things of earthly life, while all things rock under his feet.

* * * * *

"(At the Beech-Pond.) A drop from the sky falls into the pond, forms a little bubble for a while, then bursts, and mingles with the morass; another falls into the stream and becomes a part of the living billow. Is my existence like that of such a rain-drop? Then let me be resolved into a living stream: it must be so.

* * * * *

"Every bird flees from the rain: only the swallow revels in it.

* * * * *

"When I go abroad to refresh myself with a little bodily fatigue, I meet the farmers returning wearied from their work: it almost makes me ashamed to be out sauntering.

"In the morning and in the evening we perceive the changes between light and darkness; yet this change is going on to the same extent throughout the day.

"Is not the development of the human mind in the same case?

"I have looked upon numberless sunsets, and yet no two were alike. Such is the endless variety of nature; and therein lies its inexhaustible beauty.

"In watching the sunset, we are tempted to suppose that from where we stand, as far as the western horizon, the red glow of evening extends and there is light, but that behind us all is darkness. Those again who stand farther eastward imagine that the light extends quite to their feet, though no farther. Thus every man measures the horizon from the little spot on which he stands, and all regard themselves as the last remnants of enlightenment.

"Why is a sunset more attractive to most men than a sunrise?

"Is it because but few ever see the latter, or because that which departs has more of our sympathies? I think not. The sunset comes to a beautiful mysterious close in the shade of night and the stillness of universal rest; but the sunrise never comes to a conclusion: it is dissipated in the glare and noise and turmoil of the day. Beautiful is death! Oh, how I long----

* * * * *

"(Behind the manor-house garden.) When a post is driven into the earth, the end must be charred to keep it from decay: he who is touched by the fire of the mind can never die.

* * * * *

"The hide of one poor beast is sliced into harness for another. The application is easy.

* * * * *

"If a man is told that a place he desires to reach is nearer than it really is, his fatigue is doubled,--the result probably of his over-eagerness to get to the end of his journey.

"I have erred in thinking the way to the goal of my life shorter than it turns out to be.

* * * * *

"In mowing you must take short steps and walk forward in a straight line. The more sparse the clover, the more fatigue in the labor: the scythe reels about the hard earth, and at last plunges in the air without effecting any result. Significant!

* * * * *

"Green feed, and every thing brought home in the sap, is free from tithes.

* * * * *

"In cutting corn, the reaper must lay the swath behind him, so as to have nothing before him but the blades still standing. So with the deeds that we have done. They must be out of the sight, so that all our attention may be turned upon what yet remains to do.

* * * * *

"When in the distance I see the mowers bowing and rising so regularly, it seems as if they were going through some ceremonious ritual of prayer.

* * * * *

"The new paling of the manor-house garden is being painted green. Dry wood rots in wind and weather if not covered with a coating. Nature furnishes a secure vestment for all her creatures: men tear off these natural coats and are compelled to replace them with artificial ones.

"What if education were nothing more than oil-paint, a poor surrogate for the fresh lustre of Nature? No: it is Nature itself, elevated, purified; men like those around me here----

* * * * *

"Valentine, the old carpenter, is so forgetful that he walks along the road with the cart-whip on his shoulder, and cries 'Hoy!' without perceiving that his cows have turned into a wrong road forty yards behind him. Is not this the lot of many rulers?

* * * * *

"In a garden by the roadside is a weeping willow, the boughs of which have been tied and twisted into all sorts of ellipses, circles, oblique and right angles, until they have taken this shape permanently.

"The boughs of sorrow are tractable, and may be cramped into almost any deformity; still, the irrepressible vigor of Nature will restore the original growth and proportion. What is it that makes farmers so fond of distorting Nature? Why are they so prone to maltreat the weeping willow, the loveliest of trees? Perhaps there lies at the very root of human nature a disposition to indemnify one's self for a year's hard labor by making a plaything of the subject of it on a holiday.

* * * * *

"(At the crucifix in the Target Field.) Although there were some Jews living in the place where I was born, I never thought much about them. I only remember that when a little boy, like the other little boys, I jeered and even struck the little Jews at every opportunity.

"It as little occurs to us to meditate upon our relation to the Jews as upon that we hold to horses or other cattle. On the contrary, the Bible inspires every Christian child with an indistinct impression of having received some personal wrong at the hands of every individual of the Jewish persuasion. A mysterious abhorrence of them gradually settles upon the infant mind. I involuntarily regarded every Jew as having some disease of the skin. A child thus educated will caress an animal, but never a Jew.

"I am now thrown into frequent intercourse with the Jews. The Jewish teacher is a man remarkably free from prejudice, and possessed of a degree of culture such as I have not often met with. He is more conversant with theology than with the natural sciences. Is that the case with Jews in general? His method of instruction is highly intellectual, but a little wanting in system and regularity,--a disadvantage for children not extraordinarily gifted. A strange sensation overcame me on my first visit to the synagogue. The Hebrew words have wandered from the slopes of Lebanon to these German pine-forests. And yet, is not our religion derived from the same spot? Again, while ancient Rome could not vanquish the Germans, nor make them speak the language of the Capitol, modern Rome perfected the achievement. Every Sunday the Roman language is heard upon these distant hills.

* * * * *

"Over against the school-house is the so-called Burned Spot, the site of the house in which a whole Hebrew family--the grandmother, daughter-in-law, and five grandchildren--fell a victim to the flames. It is now the favorite resort of children when they wish to play at hide-and-seek. The old ruins abound in choice hiding-places. The rosy-cheeked boys clamber up and down the blackened walls, and shout and yell; just where the flames crawled! Such things occur in the history of great things also.

* * * * *

"The bel-wether dance has just been held. "These things are no longer suited to our times: they are a feature of the Middle Ages. Then the lord of the manor may have looked with complacency from the turret of his castle upon the follies of his villeins: he had given them the wether and the ribbon, and probably gave the winning pair pittance of a marriage-portion. All these things are at an end; and why continue the form of that which no longer has a substance?

"Sometimes a chord of the music steals out into the fields and strikes upon my ear; but it is only the braying of the grand trumpet that becomes thus distinguishable. Like me, the peasants here are beyond the reach of the harmonies produced by the intellectual efforts of humanity: not until the great trumpet brays or the bass-drum rattles does a solitary link attach them to the mighty chain, and, for a space, they keep step with the pace of time. Of the gentle adagio and the more intricate harmonies they know nothing.

* * * * *

"It is well that spots of ground are always to be found in which, strictly speaking, no man has a property, and where the poor may pluck their bundles of grass without molestation. Such are the steep banks, cliffs, gulches, and so on. And where even the poor can no longer find a footing, the goat--the companion of the needy--makes her way and picks a scented herb or an aromatic twig.

* * * * *

"On 'wood-days' the poor are allowed to appropriate the dry boughs of the green trees. I have read somewhere that kind Nature herself instituted this traditional charity, and throws to the poor the crumbs of her laden board. The poor and the dry sticks.

* * * * *