Part 28
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.
Hans Unwirrsch entered the swarm of poor scholars by no means with sentimental feelings. After having conquered the first surprise and embarrassment, after having made himself at home in his new surroundings, he proved himself to be no better than any other scapegrace, and to the best of his ability took part in the pleasures and pains of this praiseworthy public institution. Friends and enemies among the boys were soon discovered; congenial spirits attached themselves to him, the uncongenial tried to pull him out of his views of life by the hairs of his head, and in single combat as in general skirmish he often came to grief, which, however, he bore like a manly chap, without seeking refuge behind his teacher. As a manly chap he also had, at this period of his life, a healthy aversion toward the female sex upon the benches at the right of the passage. He was fond of putting shoemaker’s wax on the girls’ seats, and of coupling two and two of them together by firmly twisting the ends of their hair into a knot; he looked upon them with sovereign disdain as inferior creatures, who knew no other means of defence than shrieking, and through whom the schoolmaster was better informed about the left half of his school than the boys relished. At first there was not the least trace of chivalrous impulses and feelings within his bosom, but the time which was to hail the first awaking dawn in this respect was not far distant, and soon there was _one_ little creature on the other side of the school who made her influence felt upon Hans Unwirrsch. There came a time when he could not bear to see _one_ little fellow-pupil cry, and when he felt a nameless longing, which was not directed toward the great slices of bread and butter and hunches of cake which he saw other children devour upon the street; but for the present he impudently put his hands in the pockets of his baggy breeches, set his legs far apart, put himself firmly on his feet, and sought to emancipate himself as far as possible from the absolutism of womankind. No more now did he sit quiet and patient at the feet of Cousin Schlotterbeck and listen reverently to her teachings and exhortations, her fairy-tales and almanac stories, and her Bible readings. To the great discomfort of the good old lady did he daily manifest a more critical spirit. The almanac stories he knew by heart; no sooner did the “Cousin” begin a fairy-tale than he interrupted her to suggest emendations and ask impertinently ironical questions; to her kind exhortations he always offered confusing objections, which more than once put the good lady quite out of countenance. When, as was her custom, the good soul got entangled in a long-breathed genealogical row of biblical names, Hans took a truly diabolical pleasure therein, and tried to drive the poor creature deeper into the thorns, so that she at last with angry virulence would clap the book to and call her quondam “little lamb” a “saucy good-for-nothing.” Behind her back he was up to all sorts of trickery; yes, he went so far as to caricature her person before a select audience in the Kröppelstrasse, consisting of persons of his own age. In short, Hans Jakob Nikolaus Unwirrsch had now reached that stage in life during which loving relations with darkly melancholy looks and warning gestures prognosticated to this hopeful scion or youthful acquaintance a dark future, the beggar’s staff, prison, penitentiary, and at last, as an agreeable conclusion, a disgraceful death on the gallows. It is well that prophecies usually are not fulfilled.
Naturally Hans now felt more drawn to his Uncle Grünebaum than to his mother and cousin. The original cobbler had much about him that was attractive to the youthful mind. To Hans, when in the company of this worthy man, time seldom seemed to drag.
Very dirty and neglected did the household and surroundings of Uncle Grünebaum look to any respectable woman. In his workshop it looked as if brownies had made their home, not with kindly intentions, but in the most bitter ire. A wilder topsy-turvy can scarcely be pictured. Uncle Grünebaum spent the greater part of his day and of his work-hours in hunting for something or other. The tool he was in search of was never to be found, and rummaging for it did not benefit the general aspect of things. Over and above all there was a perpetual noise of whistling, singing, and screeching birds in large and small cages upon the walls; a tree-frog in a glass by the window foretold the weather. But as for the political weather, Meister Grünebaum foretold it to himself, reading the _Town and Country Herald_ with a loud voice to himself and his birds, an occupation which also took up a good deal of his work-time. The worthy Uncle Grünebaum did only just so much cobbling as was necessary to keep him and his birds alive, and to pay for the _Herald_. His glass at the alehouse was oftener scored than is good for a respectable citizen and shoemaker.
During this period of his restless life Hans decidedly preferred the street and its details to domestic happiness, to the quiet undisturbed peace of his own home. Oh, thou blessed time of dirty hands and bleeding noses, of torn jackets and rumbled hair! Woe to the man who has never known thee! It were better for him if he had not known some other things which loving relations and friends with the darkly melancholy look blandly praised and recommended!
_Wilhelm Raabe._
_NEWSPAPER HUMOUR._
_Shoemakers Apprentice_ (passing by a baker’s stand): “Got any stale rolls?”
_Baker_: “Yes, my lad.”
_Apprentice_: “Serves you right. You should have sold ’em when they were fresh.”
IN COURT.--_Judge_: “How is it that you picked up a number of comparatively worthless articles, and left the money, which was close at hand, untouched?”
_Criminal_: “I hope your honour won’t find fault with me for that. My wife has been hard enough on me about it.”
_Restaurant-keeper_ (to guest reading his paper): “I am very sorry, sir, to be obliged to ask you not to lunch here in future. You shake your head all the time. _I_ know it’s the politics, but others don’t know it, and it’s hurting my reputation.”
AT A RESTAURANT.--“This beefsteak is so tough the knife won’t go through.”
_Restaurant-keeper_: “Waiter, another knife for the gentleman.”
_Father_: “Goodness, how you look, child!”
_Frankie_: “I fell into the canal.”
_Father_: “What! With your new trousers on?”
_Frankie_: “I didn’t have time to take ’em off.”
“ALLOW me, Mademoiselle, to present this to you.”
“No, no, I do not wish to accept a present.”
“It is a volume of my poems.”
“Ah, that is different. I could not have permitted you to give me anything _valuable_.”
_Judge_ (to an individual notorious for thievish proclivities): “I was told you stole wood the other day. That is not true, is it, Peter?”
_Peter_: “Nay, Herr Judge.”
_Judge_: “The policeman says he found the wood at your house. That can’t be so?”
_Peter_: “Nay, Herr Judge.”
_Judge_: “Well, Peter, I’ll sentence you to six weeks in gaol. That’s not too much, is it?”
_Peter_: “Nay, Herr Judge.”
“I WONDER why that gentleman over there is holding the paper up before his face for such an interminable length of time?”