Chapter XXXI…

Chapter XXXI

In Rahnstadt, in the Frau Pastorin's house, there was great running up and down stairs, the day after Christmas, for Louise was putting the last touches to the arrangement of her father's room: and when she would think, now it was all ready, there was always something more that she must do for his comfort. Noon came; but her father had not yet arrived, although they expected him to dinner; she put a plate for him, however, for he might still come.

"I don't know," she said to the Frau Pastorin, "why my heart is so heavy today."

"What?" cried the little Frau, "only three months in the city, and already having premonitions, like a tea-drinking city lady? What has become of my fresh little country girl?" and she patted her daughter's cheek, affectionately.

"No," said Louise, taking the friendly hand, and holding it fast in her own, "I do not mind such vague presentiments, mine are unfortunately very definite misgivings, whether my father will feel contented here, in the loss of his usual occupations, and will accustom himself to city life."

"Child, you talk as if Rahnstadt were a Residence; no,--thank God! the geese go barefoot here, as well as in Pumpelhagen, and if your father takes pleasure in agricultural industry, he can see our neighbor on the right carting manure with two horses, and our neighbor on the left with three; and if he enjoys conversation about farming he has only to turn to our landlord, Kurz, who will talk to him about renting fields, and such matters, till he is as weary of them as we are."

Louise laughed, and as they rose from dinner, she said, "So, mother, now lie down and rest a little, and I will walk along the Gurlitz road, and perhaps I shall meet my father."

She wrapped her cloak around her, and tied a warm hood over her head, and went along the road, where she was constantly in the habit of walking, for it brought her nearer to the place where she had been so happy, and when she had time she walked as far as the little rising ground from which she could see Gurlitz, with the church, the parsonage, and the church-yard, and if she had still more time, she went on to see Lining and Gottlieb, and to talk with them of old and new times. She walked on and on, but her father came not, the east wind blew in her face, and colored her cheeks rosy red, till her lovely countenance looked out of the dark hood like a bright spring day, when it shines out of dark rain-clouds, filling the world with joy and hope. But the water stood in her eyes; was that because of the east wind? Was it because she was looking so sharply along the road for her father? Was it because of her thoughts? No, it was not the east wind, for she had stopped, and was looking towards the west, and yet her eyes were full of tears; it was not from looking for her father, for she was gazing in the opposite direction, where the sun, like a ball of fire, was just sinking behind the black fir-trees; it must have been her thoughts. Such thoughts as, in joy and grief, play around a young heart, entwining it as with a wreath of roses, so that it rejoices in utter gladness, and again weeps bitterly, when the thorns of the rose-wreath wound it to bleeding. But why was she looking westward? Ah, she knew that he was there, who sent her from thence the dearest greetings.

"Westward, oh, westward fly, my keel, Westward my heart aspires, My dying eyes will look to thee, Thou goal of my desires!"

The old rhyme whispered itself in her ear, and she stood there flushing rosy-red, full of sweet unrest over the secret power that spoke in her heart, like a bright spring day when it goes to rest, and the glowing clouds promise another fair day for the morrow.

She went farther, to the elevation where her father had stood, a couple of hours before, and tasted the bitterness with which his fellow-men had filled his cup; she stood there, looking towards Pumpelhagen and Gurlitz, and the love which she had received from her fellow-creatures, in these places, overflowed her heart, and the curses uttered in hatred and misery, by that poor old heart, were washed away from the tablets of the recording angel, by the daughter's prayers, and her tears of love and thankfulness.

It was a mile from Rahnstadt to Gurlitz, and the winter sun was near its setting; she must go home. Then she saw a man approaching from Gurlitz, it might be her father, she stood still awhile, looking; no, it was not her father! and she went on, but turned round again to look, and now perceived that it was Uncle Braesig, who was hurrying up to her.

"God bless you, Louise! How? Why are you standing here, on the open road, in this bitter wind? Why don't you go in, and see the young folks at the parsonage?"

"No, Uncle Braesig, not to-day. I merely came out to meet my father."

"What? Karl Habermann? Why, isn't he with you?"

"No, not yet."

"But he went through Gurlitz, this morning, about half past twelve."

"He has been here? Oh, where can he be?"

Braesig remembered Habermann's agitated appearance, and, seeing the anxiety of his child, he tried to comfort her: "It is often the case with us farmers, we have one thing here, and another there, to attend to; possibly he has gone over to Gulzow, or possibly he may be already in Rahnstadt, attending to some business there. But I will go with you, my child," he added, "for I have business in Rahnstadt, and shall stay all night, and get back my three thalers from that sly rogue of a Kurz, the syrup-prince, which he won from me at Boston. It is our club-day."

When they had gone a little way, they were met by a chaise from Rahnstadt. It contained Krischan Daesel and Dr. Strump. The doctor stopped, saying, "Have you heard? Herr von Rambow has met with an accident, with a fowling-piece; he has shot himself in the arm. But I have no time, the coachman was obliged to wait for me a great while; I was not at home. Go ahead!"

"What is this?" cried Louise. "Has my father left Pumpelhagen, when such an accident has just happened? He would not have done that."

"It may have occurred since he left," said Braesig, but when he thought of Habermann's appearance that morning, he did not believe his own excuse. Louise grew more and more anxious, and hastened with quicker steps. Between her father's delay and the accident at Pumpelhagen she could find no probable connection, and yet it seemed to her that they must have something to do with each other.

Meanwhile, Habermann had arrived in Rahnstadt, at the Frau Pastorin's. He had turned off from the direct road, and made a circuit, until he could collect himself, that he might not appear before his child in such fearful excitement. As he entered the Frau Pastorin's door, he had indeed controlled himself, but the terrible conflict he had just fought out in his heart left a lassitude and weariness, which made him look ten years older, and could not but strike the little Frau immediately. She sprang up, letting the coffee boil over, which she was taking off, and cried:

"Good heavens! Habermann, what is the matter? Are you sick?"

"No--yes, I believe so. Where is Louise?"

"She went to look for you, didn't you meet her? But sit down! Bless me, how exhausted you look!"

Habermann sat down, and looked about the room, as if to see whether he were alone with the Frau Pastorin.

"Habermann, tell me, what ails you?" said the little Frau, grasping his cold hands in her own.

"It is all over with me; I must go through the world, henceforth, as a useless and dishonored man."

"Oh, no! no! Don't talk like that!"

"That the opportunity of working should be taken from me, I can bear, though it is hard; but that I should also lose my honest name, that pierces me to the heart, that I cannot bear."

"And who should take that from you?" asked the Frau Pastorin, looking him trustfully in the eyes.

"The people who know it best, the Herr von Rambow and his wife," said the old man, and began to tell the story with a weak, and often broken, voice; but when he came to the end, how the young Frau had also deserted him, had turned her back upon him, and let him go out of the door, as a thief and a traitor, then his anger broke out, he sprang from his chair, and walked up and down the room, with gleaming eyes and clenched fist, as if he were ready for combat with the wicked world.

"Oh," he cried, "if that were only all! But they have injured me more cruelly than they know, they have ruined my child's happiness along with mine. There! read it, Frau Pastorin!" and he gave her the letter from Franz. She read, the sheet trembling in her hand, so greatly had the story excited her, while he stood before her, and looked at her, without once turning away his eyes.

"Habermann," she said, grasping his hand, when she had read it, "don't you see the finger of God? The injury which one cousin has done you, shall be made up to you by the other."

"No, Frau Pastorin," said he sternly, "I should be the scoundrel which the world will henceforth deem me, if I could let a brave, trustful man take to his house a wife with a dishonored name. Poor and honest! For all I care! But dishonest? never!"

"Dear heart!" cried the little Frau, "where is my Pastor, now? If my Pastor were only here! He could help and counsel us.

"That he could," said Habermann, to himself. "I cannot do it," he cried, "my child must decide for herself, and you must help her, you have done more to educate her sense of right and wrong, than I alas! have been able to do. If my child considers it right and honourable, in spite of everything, to accept his offer, if you yourself agree with her, then let it be! I will exert no influence in the matter, I will not see her, until she has decided. Here is a letter from Franz to her, give it to her, telling her, beforehand, what has happened; just as I have told you, is the truth. I will go up to my room; I cannot, I dare not touch a finger." He left the room, but came back again; "Frau Pastorin, consult her happiness only, have no regard for mine! Forget what I said before. I will do what I can to keep my dishonoured name in concealment."

He went out again, saying to himself as he mounted the stairs, "I cannot do otherwise, I cannot do otherwise." As he threw himself down on the sofa, in his little room, and everywhere about him saw the hand of his daughter, how she had arranged and ordered everything for his comfort, he put his hand over his eyes, and wept. "Shall I lose all this?" He sighed deeply. "And why not? why not? If it is for her happiness," he cried aloud, "I will never see her again!" The house-door opened, he heard Braesig's voice, he heard the bright greeting of his child. All was still again, he listened for every sound. Now Frau Pastorin was telling what had happened, now his darling's heart was torn. Slowly there came steps up the stairs; Braesig came in, looking as silent and composed as if death were walking over his grave, his eyebrows, which he generally raised so high when anything unusual occurred, lay deep and heavy over his eyes, he said nothing but "I know, Karl, I know all," and sat down by his friend, on the sofa.

So they sat long, in the half-twilight, and neither spoke; at last Braesig grasped Habermann's hand: "Karl," said he, "we have known each other these fifty years. Don't you remember, at old Knirkstaedt's? What a pleasant youth we had! always contented and joyous! and, excepting a couple of foolish jokes that we played together, we have, upon the whole, nothing to reproach ourselves with. Karl, it is a comfortable sort of feeling, when one can look back upon old days, and say, 'Follies, to be sure, but nothing base!'"

Habermann shrank back, and drew his hand away.

"Karl," said Braesig again, "a good conscience is a fine thing, when one is growing old, and it is noticeable, quite noticeable, how this good conscience stands by us when we are old, and will not leave us. Karl, my dear old boy!" and he fell upon Habermann's neck, and wept bitterly.

"Braesig," said Habermann, "don't make my heart heavy, it is heavy enough already."

"Eh, how, Karl! How can your heart be heavy? Your heart is as pure as Job's; it should be as light as a lark, which mounts in the clear heavens; for this story of the infamous--no, I won't talk about that; I would say---- Why, what were we talking about? Yes, so! about the conscience. It is a wonderful thing, about the conscience, Karl! For instance, there is Kurz, with his, for he has one, as well as you and I, and I suppose he will stand before God with it sometime; but before me he stands very badly, for he peeps at the cards, when we play Boston; he has a sort of groschens-conscience; for, you see, in great things, he is quite correct, for example, in renting the house to the Frau Pastorin; but ell-wise, and pot-wise and pound-wise, he takes what he can get, he isn't at all ashamed, that is when he can get anything; when he don't get anything he is ashamed of himself. And let me tell you, Karl, if you live here, you must have a good deal of intercourse with him, and that pleasure will be a good deal like his conscience, for he is fond of discoursing about farming, and it is as if he were taking a drive for pleasure in a manure-cart. It will be no pleasure to you, and so I have thought, when I have seen our young pastor through his spring seed-time, and everything is in train, I will come over here to you, and we can cheer each other up a little; and then in harvest time, we can go out to Gurlitz, to keep the poor fellow from getting into difficulties; and he will not, for Juern is a considerate fellow, and he himself begins,--thank God,--to do all sorts of useful things, with Lining's assistance. And when he has finished his first year, you shall see, he will be quite rid of his Pietistry, but we must let him struggle a little sometimes, that he may learn to know himself and the world, and find that there is something more in human life than to read psalm-books. Yes, and then I will come to you, Karl, and we will live as they do in Paris, and you shall see, Karl, this last quarter of our lives shall be the best piece of the whole ox."

And he embraced him again, and talked of past times and future, alternately, like a mother trying to divert her child to other thoughts. The moon shone in at the window, and what can better heal a torn heart, than its soft light, and the love of an old, tried friend, who has been true to us? I always think that the bright, warm sunshine is more suitable for love, but with friendship, the moonlight harmonizes best.

While they were sitting thus, the door opened, and, with light step, a slender form entered the room, and remained standing, in the full moonlight, the arms crossed on her breast, and the white face gleaming in the moonshine, as if it were a statue of white marble, against a dark wall of yew-trees: "Was hat man Dir, Du armes Kind, gethan?"[7]

Braesig left the room, without speaking. Habermann covered his eyes with his hand as if something pierced him to his inmost heart. The slender form threw itself at his side, the folded arms opened to embrace him, and the white face pressed itself to his. For a long time, there was silence, at last the old man heard light, soft words breathed in his ear: "I know what you think right; I am your child--am I not? Your darling child."

Habermann threw his arm about his darling child.

"Father, father!" she cried, "we will not part! My other father, who is now with God, has told me how you would not be separated from me, when you were in the deepest trouble and sorrow, when the good laborer's wife wanted to keep me; now you are again in trouble and sorrow, would you be parted from me now? should I leave you now?" and she pressed him to her heart, saying softly, "thy name is my name, thy honor is my honor, thy life is my life."

Much was spoken, in the sweet moonlight, in the cozy little room, but of all this nothing shall be betrayed, for when a faithful father and a loving child talk thus together, talk for their whole lives, our Lord himself is with them, and it is not for the world, 'tis for the two alone.

Down-stairs, in the Frau Pastorin's living-room, it was quite different. Frau Pastorin sat in her arm-chair, and cried bitterly; the dear, good Frau was quite beside herself,--Habermann's misfortune had moved her deeply,--but when she must rouse this fearful conflict in the breast of her dear child, when she saw the struggle going on, and afterwards saw confidence and courage getting the mastery in that dear heart, in spite of wounds and sorrow, she felt as if she had maliciously destroyed the happiness of her child, and her poor heart was torn with self-reproach and sorrow and compassion, till she broke out into bitter weeping. Braesig, on the contrary, had used up his compassion, he had done his utmost, when with Habermann, to keep back his wrath against the wretchedness of mankind, and when he came down to the Frau Pastorin, and, in the darkness, was not aware of her distress, he broke loose:

"Infamous pack of Jesuits! What? Such a man as Karl Habermann, would you destroy his honor and reputation? It is like Satan himself! It is as if one held the cat, and the other stabbed it. Curses on them----"

"Braesig, Braesig, I beseech you," cried the little Frau Pastorin, "stop this unchristian behavior!"

"Do you call that unchristian behavior? It seems to me like a song of the holy angels in Paradise, if I compare it with the scurvy tricks of this pack of Jesuits."

"Braesig, we are not the judges of these people."

"I know very well, Frau Pastorin, I am not the magistrate, and you are not in the judge's chair, but when a toad hops across my path, you cannot expect me to look upon it as a beautiful canary bird. No, Frau Pastorin, toads are toads, and Zamel Pomuchelskopp is the chief toad, who has spit his venom upon us all. What do you say to his chicanery that he has contrived against me? You see, in the one foot-path, which has led to the pastor's acre, for this thousand years, so far as I know, he has had a stake put up, so that we cannot go there, and he sent word to me that if I went there, he would have my boots pulled off, and let me go hopping about in the snow, like a crow. Do you call that a Christian disposition? But I will complain of him. Shall such a fellow as that liken me to a crow? And Pastor Gottlieb must complain of him. How can he forbid him the foot-path? And young Jochen must complain of him, for he has said openly, young Jochen was an old blockhead, and young Jochen is not obliged to put up with that. And you must complain of him, because he would not build a widow-house, since all the people have told me there must be Acts about it. And Karl Habermann must complain of the young Herr. We must organize revolution against the Jesuits, and if I can have my way, we will all drive to-morrow, in a carryall, to Gustrow, to the court of justice, and complain of the whole company, and we will take along five advocates, so that each may have one, and then, hurrah for a lawsuit!"

If he had known that Louise had suffered most from the Jesuits, he might have proposed taking another advocate for her; but as yet, he had no suspicion of her troubles. Frau Pastorin tried to pacify him, but it was not an easy task, he wanted to turn everything topsy-turvy, and the misfortunes of his old friend had so agitated his heart, that the troubles which usually lay in its depths, the farm-boy angers, and the card-playing vexations, all came to the surface. "I came over here," said he, "to amuse myself, since it was club-day, and to win back my three thalers from that old toad of an evil-doer, that Kurz, which he got out of me with his infamous cheating, and now the devil must hold his confounded spy-glass before my eyes, and bring all the wickedness of the world right into the neighborhood. Well, I call that amusing! And Frau Pastorin, if you don't think ill of it, I might spend the night here with you, for this stupid game of Boston will come to nothing, and it would be a good thing for me to sleep with Karl, because he needs somebody to cheer him up."

Frau Pastorin said she should be glad to have him stay, and the evening was spent in maledictions on his side, and efforts at pacification upon hers. Habermann and Louise did not appear, and when Braesig went up to his old friend, Louise was no longer there.

The next morning Braesig took leave of his old friend, with these words:

"Rely upon it, Karl, I will drive to Pumpelhagen, myself, and look after your affairs. You shall get everything, though it makes me creep all over, to cross a threshold where you have been thrust out so infamously."

The same morning, Habermann sat down and wrote to Franz; he told him truly and circumstantially what had happened lately in Pumpelhagen, he wrote of the dreadful conclusion the matter had arrived at, and informed him of the shameful suspicions which had fallen upon him, and finished with the statement that he and his child were of one mind, they must refuse his offer. He wanted to write warmly and heartily of the friendship which he felt for the young man, but he could not speak freely, as before, he seemed constrained. At last he begged him earnestly, to leave him and his child to themselves; they two must bear their fate, alone.

Louise wrote also, and when, towards evening, the Frau Pastorin's maid took the letter to the post, she stood at the window, and looked after her, as if she had taken leave of her dearest friend in the world forever. She looked at the sun, which was going down in the west, and murmured, "My dying eyes shall look to thee, thou goal of my desires." But she did not turn red as yesterday, she stood there pale, and, as the last rays of the sun disappeared behind the houses, a deep sigh rose from her oppressed heart, and as she turned away bitter tears flowed down her pale cheeks. The tears flowed not for her lost happiness, no, for his.

As Braesig came to the parsonage, the young Frau Pastorin met him at the door; "God bless you, Uncle Braesig, I am glad you have come here,--no, not here, in Pumpelhagen there are dreadful stories. Dr. Strump has been here,--our Juern was taken sick suddenly, last night, he was delirious,--and I ran for the doctor, who had been at Pumpelhagen, to speak to him as he passed through the village,--and he told me dreadful things,--not he, properly speaking, he only let himself be questioned, but his coachman told me that--ah, come in, it blows so out here!" and she drew him into the house. Here she told him all that the people said, that her dear Uncle Habermann had shot Axel, and had gone off, nobody knew where, but probably to take his own life. Braesig comforted her with news that Habermann was alive, and told her about the shooting, then inquired how it was with the young Herr, and learned that Dr. Strump did not think it a dangerous case. He then went to see Juern, who apparently had an attack of pneumonia. By this time, it was noon, and he must pursue his journey to Pumpelhagen, to attend to Habermann's affairs, and must also look out for another coachman. He inquired about in the village, but nobody would go to drive, and help him to load the goods; one had this, another that excuse, and finally he resolved to play coachman himself, when old Ruhrdanz, the weaver, said, "Well, it is all one to me, what he says to it; if he wants to chicane me, he may. I will drive you, Herr Inspector."

Braesig made no objections, being very glad to find some one to help him with the loading, and they drove off.

"Ruhrdanz," asked Braesig, "what did you mean by chicaning?"

"Why, Herr, he has forbidden us all to do anything for the folks at the parsonage; we must not even take a step for them."

"Who has forbidden you?"

"Eh, he, our Herr Pomuchelskopp."

"Infamous Jesuit!" said Braesig to himself.

"If we did so, he told us, we might fodder our cows next winter on sawdust, he wouldn't give us a handful of hay or straw, and we might build with bricks, for he would give us no wood or turf."

Braesig turned dark with anger, but the old man was fairly launched, and went on, under full sail:

"And we must be always ready for him, night or day. I was out for him, the whole holiday, and got home last night, at ten o'clock."

"Where did you go?"

"Eh, to Ludswigslust, to the old railroad."

"What had you to do there."

"Eh, I had nothing to do there."

"But you must have had business there."

"Why, yes, I had business; but it came to nothing, for he had no papers."

"Well, what was it, then?"

"You see, he sent down from the Court, I should drive a ram down to the old railroad; well, I did so, and we got there all right. There was a fellow standing at the station; he let me pass, and I said to him, 'Good morning,' says I, 'here he is.' 'Who?' he asked. 'The ram.' says I. 'What of him?' says he. 'Well, I don't know,' says I. 'Has he any papers?' asked he. 'No,' says I, 'he hasn't any papers.' 'Blockhead,' says he, 'I asked if he[8] had any papers.' 'No,' says I, 'I told you before, the ram has no papers.' 'Thunder and lightning!' says he, 'I asked if he himself had any papers.' 'What?' says I, 'if I? What do I want of papers? I was to deliver him here.' You see, the fellow was undecided, and first he turned me out, and then he put out the old ram after me, and there we both stood by the train. Huiueue! said the old thing, and then it went off, and we stood there, he had no papers, and I had no papers, and what should I do about it? I loaded him in again, and drove back home. And when I went up to the house, last evening, there was a great uproar, and I thought our Herr would eat me up, he flew at me so. But what did I know? If he must have papers, he should have given them to somebody. But so much I know, if our Herr were not such a great Herr, and if he hadn't such a stiff backbone, and if we all held together, we would try a tussle with him. And his old Register of a wife is a thousand times worse than himself! Didn't she beat my neighbor Kapphingsten's girl half dead, last spring? She beat the girl three times with a broomstick, and shut her up in the shed, and starved her, and why? Because a hawk had carried off a chicken. Was it her fault that the hawk carried off the chicken, and was it my fault that he had given me no papers?"

Braesig listened to all this, and, though yesterday he wanted to start a revolution against Pomuchelskopp, to-day he kept perfectly still, for he would never have forgiven himself, if he had, by a thoughtless word, excited the people against their master.

They came to Pumpelhagen, and drove up to the farm-house door. With a great leap, Fritz Triddelsitz came out of the house to Braesig: "Herr Inspector, Hen Inspector! I truly could not help it, Marie Moeller packed the book up, through an oversight, and when I went to change my clothes, in Demmin, there was the book."

"What book?" asked Braesig hastily.

"Good gracious! Habermann's book, that all this uproar has been about."

"And that book," said Braesig, catching Fritz by the collar, and shaking him, till his teeth chattered in his head, "you infamous greyhound, did you take that book to Demmin with you?" and he gave him a push towards the door: "In with you! Bring me the book!"

With fear and trembling, Fritz brought out the book; Braesig snatched it from his hand. "Infamous greyhound! Do you know what you have done? The man who in his kindness and love has tried to make a man of you, who has covered all your stupidities with a silken mantle, you have ruined, you have brought into this shameful quarrel."

"Herr Inspector, Herr Inspector!" cried Fritz, deadly pale, "Oh, Lord! it wasn't my fault, Marie Moeller packed up the book, and I rode from Demmin to-day, in two hours, to bring it back again as soon as possible."

"Marie Moeller!" cried Braesig, "what have you to do with Marie Moeller? Oh, if I were your Herr Father, or your Frau Mother, or even your Frau Aunt, I would lash you till you ran like a squirrel along the wall. What have you to do with that old goose of a Marie Moeller? And do you think to make up for your stupidity by gallopping over the public road? Shall the innocent beast suffer for your fault? But come now, come before the board! Come before the judgment seat, to the gracious Frau! You shall tell her how it has all happened, and then you can go and parade with Marie Moeller."

And with that, he went off, and Fritz followed slowly behind, his heart full of misgivings.

"Announce me, with the young man, to the gracious Frau," said Braesig, to Daniel Sadenwater, when they came to the porch, and he pointed to Fritz. Daniel made a sort of half-grown bow, and went. Fritz stood there, like butter in the sun, making a face, which came very readily to him, since his days at Parchen, because he used to make it when there was a conference of teachers, and his misdeeds came up for judgment. Braesig stood bent up in the corner, with the book under his arm, and tugged alternately at his left and right boot-straps, that his yellow tops might appear to the best advantage. When the gracious Frau came, and went into the living-room, he followed her, quite red from the stooping and his excitement, and Fritz, very pale, went in behind him.

"You wished to speak to me, Herr Inspector?" asked the young Frau, looking now at Braesig, and now at Triddelsitz.

"Yes, gracious Frau, but I would first beg you graciously to hear what this Apothecary's son, this--infamous greyhound,"--he was going to say, but restrained himself--"young man has to say, he has a fine story to tell you."

The young Frau turned a questioning glance upon Fritz, and the old fellow began to stammer out his story, growing first red, and then pale, and told it pretty much as it happened, only that he left out Marie Moeller's name, ending with, "And so the book came, by an oversight, into my travelling bag."

"Out with Marie Moeller!" cried Braesig, "the truth must finally come to light!"

"Yes," said Fritz, "Marie Moeller packed it up; I had so much to do that day."

The young Frau was greatly disturbed. "So it was all only an unhappy accident?"

"Yes gracious Frau, it was so," said Braesig, "and here is the book, and here, on the last page, is Habermann's account, and there are four hundred thalers due him, beside his salary, and it is right, and balances, for Karl Habermann never makes mistakes, and when we were boys he used to excel me myself, in the accuracy of his reckoning."

The young Frau took the book with trembling hand, and as she, without thinking of it, noticed the sum total on the last page, the thought shot confusedly through her mind, Habermann was innocent of this charge, why not of the other, in which she had never believed? Fritz's story could not be an invention, and she had done the man the bitterest injustice; but he had shot her husband! In that, she found a sort of excuse, and she said, "But for God's sake, how could he shoot at Axel?"

"Gracious Frau," said Braesig, raising his eyebrows very high, and putting on his most serious expression, "with your favor, those are abominable lies; the young Herr took aim at him, and as Habermann was trying to wrest the gun from him, it went off, and that is the whole truth, and I know all about it, because he told me himself, and he never lies."

Dear heart, she knew that, and she knew also, that so much could not be said of her husband; at the first, in his first excitement, he had said, "He is not a murderer," but since then, he had constantly affirmed that Habermann had shot him. She sat down, and laid her hand over her eyes, and tried to take counsel with herself; but it was of no use; she collected herself with an effort, and said, "You have come, I suppose, to receive the money for the inspector; my husband is suffering, I cannot disturb him now, but I will send it."

"No, gracious Frau, I did not come for that," said Braesig, drawing himself up, "I came here to tell the truth, I came here to defend my old friend, who was my playmate sixty years ago."

"You have no need to do that, if your friend has a good conscience, and I believe he has."

"I see, by this remark, gracious Frau, that you know human nature very poorly. Man has two consciences, the one inside of him, and that no devil can take from him, but the other is outside of him, and that is his good name, and that any scamp may take from him, if he has the power, and is clever enough, and can kill him before the world, for man lives not for himself alone, he lives also for the world. And these wicked rumors are like the thistles, that the devil and his servants sow in our fields, they stand there, and the better the soil is the bigger they grow, and they blossom and go to seed, and when the top is ripe, then comes the wind,--no man knows whence it cometh or whither it goeth, and it carries the down from the thistle-top all over the field, and next year the whole field is full of them, and men stand there and scold, but no one will take hold and pull up the weeds, for fear of getting his fingers pricked. And you, gracious Frau, have also been afraid of pricking your fingers, when you let my old friend be driven out of your house, as a traitor and a thief, and I wanted to tell you that, and to tell you that that hurt my Karl Habermann the worst of all. And now farewell! I have nothing more to say." With that, he left the room, and Fritz followed him.

And Frida? Where was the bright young wife with her clear eyes and sound understanding, who looked at everything so sensibly and quietly? This was not the same woman, the cool, intelligent composure had changed to restless agitation, and before the clear eyes lay a shadow, which hindered her from looking about her. "Ah," she exclaimed, "untrue again! All these suspicions are merely the progeny of lies, of self-deception and the most unmanly weakness! And my distress for him, my love for him, must make me a sharer in his wrong, I must give a deadly wound to this honest heart that loved me so truly! But I will tell him!"--she sprang up,--"I will tear away this web of lies!" but she sank down again, in weakness; "no, not yet; I cannot; he is too ill." Ah, she was right; insincerity and falsehood surround in a wide circle even the most upright heart, and come nearer and nearer, and draw it into the whirlpool, till it no longer knows whether it is out or in, when cool composure is lost, and considerate thought is absorbed in fear or hope.

When Braesig came to his wagon, Ruhrdanz, with the help of Krischan Daesel and others, had packed nearly all the goods, and what was left soon found a place. Braesig was getting into the wagon by Ruhrdanz, when Fritz Triddelsitz held him fast: "Herr Inspector, I beg of you, tell Herr Habermann that I am innocent, that I couldn't help it."

Braesig would have made no answer, but when he saw Fritz's sorrowful face, he pitied him, and said, "Yes, I will tell him; but you must reform." Then he drove off.

"Herr Inspector," said Ruhrdanz, after a little while, "it is none of my business, and perhaps I should not speak of it; but who would have thought it--I mean about Herr Habermann."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, nothing,--I only mean that he should go off so suddenly, and then this shooting."

"Eh, that is all stuff and nonsense," said Braesig, in vexation.

"So I said, Herr Inspector; but the groom Krischan, he stood there, as we were packing, and he said that the whole disturbance came from the confounded papers, because Herr Habermann had no regular papers to show. Yes, so I say, the confounded papers!"

"Habermann's papers are all right."

"Yes, so I say, Herr Inspector, but about the shooting! Our young Herr Gustaving was telling about it this morning, all over the village."

"Gustaving," cried Braesig in his wrath, "is a rascal of a puppy! a puppy who has not yet got his eyes open."

"So I say, and don't take it evil of me, Herr Inspector; but he is the best of the lot, up at the Court. For, you see, there is the old--well, Orndt's nephew was here last week, and he came from Prussia to Anclam, and he said that our Herr always had human skin on his stick, he banged the people about so; but the Prussians wouldn't put up with him, and the people went to the Landgrafenamt, or to the Landrathenamt,--I don't know what the old thing is called,--and complained of him, and the Landgraf turned him out in disgrace. I wish we had such a Landgraf in our neighbourhood, for the court of justice is too far off."

"Yes," said Braesig hastily, "if you had such a Landrath as that, you would have something rare."

"So I say, Herr Inspector, but once he went rather too far, for he beat a woman who was in the family way, and injured her severely, and, you won't take it ill of me, Herr Inspector, but I think that was a great crime. Then they complained of him to the king, and he commanded that he should be imprisoned in Stettin for life, and drag balls after him. Well, then, his old woman went to the king, and fell down on her knees to him, and the king let him out, on condition that he should wear an iron ring round his neck, all his life long, and every autumn he should drag balls, for four weeks, in Stettin,--he was there this last autumn,--and that he should leave the country; and so he came here; but now tell me, Herr Inspector, if he should be driven away from here, where could he go?"

"Where the pepper grows, for all I care," said Braesig.

"Yes, so I say, Herr Inspector; but don't take it ill of me, I don't believe they would take him there; for, you see, he has money enough to buy a place, but how about his papers? For when the king comes to see his papers, and he reads that he must wear an iron ring on his neck, and that that is the reason he always wears such a great thick neck-cloth, then they will have nothing to do with him."

"Eh, then you will have to keep him," said Braesig.

"Well, if there is no other way, then we must keep him; he is, so to speak, married to us. Get up!" he cried, and drove at a trot, through Gurlitz; and Braesig fell into deep thought. How strangely things went in the world! Such a fellow, who had such a reputation, was yet in circumstances to ruin an honest man's good name; for he was quite certain that Pomuchelskopp was at the bottom of all the stories, and that he had taken pains to set them in circulation was evident from Gustaving's share in the matter.

"It is scandalous," he said to himself, as he got down, in Rahnstadt, at the Frau Pastorin's, "but take care, Zamel! I have taken one trick from you, with the pastor's acre, I shall get another; but first I must complain of you, about the 'crow!'"

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Chapter XXXII

New-Year's day, 1846, had come, and brought its kind wishes, and the Rahnstadters congratulated each other, in the cold streets, or in the warm parlors, just as it happened, and some people slept until noon, and ate pickled herrings, because it was Sylvester's eve, and there was much talk among the young people of this and that, which had happened at the ball, yesterday, and the old folks sat together, and talked of what had happened, not indeed at the ball, but in the world. And the story of Habermann and Herr von Rambow was a chief dish, which was served up at all tables; and as every house had its own cookery, so it had also its own gossip, one believed the story so, and another so, and each suited it to his own palate, and invited his neighbor as guest, and Slusuhr and David went everywhere, as unbidden guests, and the one added his pepper, and the other his garlic to the dish. And so, for the city of Rahnstadt and the region round about the story and the slander became richer in its process, as each seasoned it with his favorite spice: Habermann had for years been cheating his two masters, and had accummulated a great pile of money, which was the reason why the young Herr von Rambow was always in pecuniary embarrassment; he had gone halves with the lay-laborer Regel, in his robbery, and had helped him off and given him a recommendation. Whether Jochen Nuessler had assisted in the conspiracy, people were not definitely informed. But at last the apothecary Triddelsitz's son, who was an uncommonly wideawake and discreet young man, had come upon the track, by secretly examining Habermann's books, in which he discovered the whole imposition, word for word. He had told it to the housekeeper, Marie Moeller, and they both agreed that Triddelsitz must take the book till Habermann had gone, and the considerate young man did so, and carried it with him to Demmin, intending to deliver it afterwards to Herr von Rambow. But, the next day, Habermann had missed the book, and was persuaded that Herr von Rambow had taken it, so he went to him, and told him he was a rascal, and demanded his book again, and when the young Herr could not give it him, he aimed a rifle at his breast. The young Herr would not bear that, and grappled with him for the rifle, and it went off, and the Herr von Rambow was now lying at the point of death. Habermann was doubtless in concealment, somewhere in the city. This was pretty nearly the story which the Rahnstadters had pieced together, and everybody wondered that the burgomeister did not have such a dangerous man put in prison.

There were, fortunately, two intelligent beings in the city, who would not bite at the story; one was Moses, who, when David told him of the affair, said merely, "David, you are too stupid!" and went about his business, the other was the burgomeister himself, who shook his head and also went about his business. The Rector Baldrian did not go about his business, for he had a vacation, and he said if the whole city said so there must be something in it, but so much he would say, and he would go to the sacrament upon it, his Gottlieb's father-in-law, Jochen Nuessler, was not in the conspiracy. Kurz said it was possible, but he would never have suspected it of old Habermann; but no one could read the heart of another. Meanwhile, he must say, one thing seemed to him improbable, that Fritz Triddelsitz could have acted with much discretion, and he believed that part of the business must have happened differently. Just for the reason that his Fritz had distinguished himself, the apothecary believed in the story, and told it all over the city, that he might increase his dear son's celebrity.

And so strangely does destiny play with us. At this very moment when Fritz's renown was spread through the whole city, he himself stood before that dreadful criminal, Habermann, in the guise of a penitent sinner, begging him earnestly to forgive his share in the trouble, he had not done it intentionally. Habermann stroked his chestnut hair, and said, "Let it go Triddelsitz! But notice one thing; many a good action has evil consequences in the world, and many an evil one has good; but we are not responsible for the consequences, those lie in other hands, and the consequences do not make an action either good or bad. If you had not done wrong, in deceiving me about your grain-account, your conscience would not trouble you, and you need not have stood before me thus. But I forgive you; and now take the receipt for the money, and be a good, steady fellow! And now, good-bye!"

He gave him a receipt, for the gracious Frau had sent him his salary, and this money he had paid out, by Fritz.

Fritz went to the inn, when he had left his horse. There were many people there and they flocked around him: "Well, how is it? You did that well!" "Is the Herr von Rambow dangerously hurt?" "Then he is still living!" "Do let Herr Triddelsitz speak!" "Just tell us----" "No, just tell us, have you got Habermann?"

Fritz was in no mood for narration, he had no desire to expose his own stupidity; he pushed through the crowd, with a few general remarks, and mounted his horse, and the Rahnstadters said, with one accord, he was a very discreet young man, he would not sound his own praises.

If the Rahnstadters gathered about Fritz, in their curiosity, as if he were a bottle of syrup, and they the flies, they were to have a still richer treat; this New-year's day was to be a real news-day. Scarcely had Fritz, outwardly so proud and reserved, inwardly so dejected and penitent, ridden away from the door, when a carriage drove up to the inn,--the gentleman driving himself, and the coachman sitting behind,--and the Rahnstadters flattened their noses against the window panes; who could that be? "He looks wonderfully familiar to me," said one. "Yes, I have surely seen him before," said another. "Is it not----" began a third. "Eh, what? No, it is'nt the one you think," said Bank, the shoemaker. "I know him," said Wimmersdort the tailor, "I have made him many a coat, that is the Herr von Rambow who lives beyond Schwerin, at Hogen-Selchow, the cousin of the Pumpelhagen Herr." "The tailor is right, it is he." "Yes, it is he." "Probably he comes on account of this story." "That must be it, for the Pumpelhagen Herr lies so low, he can attend to nothing. You shall see, he will take the business in hand." And as Franz came in to lay off his furs, the Rahnstadters all stood with their backs against the windows, with their backs against the stove, with their backs against the walls, and all looked to the middle of the room, where Franz stood, as it were, surrounded by a web of curiosity, from which all the threads ran to the middle, where he was caught, like a helpless fly.

Franz went out, spoke a couple of words to the servant, and went off towards the market. "Johann," asked one from the window, "what did he say to you?" "Ah," said Johann, "he only asked after the burgomeister, if he was at home." "Did you hear? he asked after the burgomeister; he is going to work in earnest." "Johann," said another, "did he say nothing else?" "Yes, he asked where the parson's wife lived, who has moved here lately, near Kurz the shopkeeper." "Ha, ha! Do you notice that? The inspector is probably stowed away, with the parson's wife. Well, good-bye."

"Gossip Wimmersdorf, where are you going?" "Oh, I shall drop in at Kurz's." "Wait, I will go too." "That is so," said another, "at Kurz's, we can see everything finely." "Yes, let us go to Kurz's," and it was not long before Kurz's shop was fuller of customers than he had seen it for a long time, and every one took a dram, and some two, and Kurz said to himself, "Thank God! the new year begins finely."

After a while, Franz came back from the market, and went past Kurz's shop, directly up to the Frau Pastorin's door.

"How? He has no policeman with him!" said one.

"Yes, Hoppner is not at home, he has gone to get a pig to-day, from the farmer at Prebberow."

"Oh, that is all right, then."

"How Habermann will feel, when he finds himself caught!" said Wimmersdorf.

"Children, my feet are getting cold," said Bank, the shoemaker, "I am going home."

"What? You may as well wait till the business comes to a head," said Thiel, the cabinet-maker.

"What do you know about it?" said Bank. "It seems to me as if there was'nt a word of truth in the whole story."

"What? You told me the story, yourself, this morning," said Thiel.

"Yes, that is so, but morning talk is not evening talk. I have considered the matter since then."

"That is to say, you have got cold feet over it," said the tailor. All laughed.

"That is a stupid joke," said the shoemaker, "and the whole story is a stupid joke; the old inspector has traded with me all these years, and has always paid his accounts honestly, and is he likely, in his old age, to take to cheating and stealing?"

"Eh, you may talk! But when the whole city says so?"

"Eh, the whole city! Here stands Herr Kurz, ask him if he has'nt always paid honestly! Ask the man what he says to it!"

"What I say to it? I say nothing," said Kurz, "but I don't believe it, and I have my own reasons."

"There, do you hear?"

"Yes, it may possibly be so."

"Yes, I said, all along, the matter looked very strange to me."

"Well," said Wimmersdorf, "he never traded with me, and I don't see why I should'nt believe it."

"Eh, tailor, don't let yourself be laughed at!"

"Yes, children, laugh at the tailor!"

"Now, I will tell you something," said Bank, smiting with his fist on the counter. "Come here, all of you,--Herr Kurz, fill the glasses once more! Now let us all drink to our brave, old, honest inspector!"

And they did so, and went home with a stronger belief than ever in Habermann, and with all of them, except Wimmersdorf the tailor, the old man was reinstated in his good name. Why? Because Bank the shoemaker had cold feet.

Upon such little things often depends good or evil opinion. Here, the good prevailed; but what availed the good opinion of a few insignificant mechanics against that secret, invisible power which determined the fate of the children of men in this little city, and held the entangled threads of happiness and misery in its hand, and pulls them, so that one must dance on the string, at its will? I mean that secret tribunal which the women folks hold, in the quiet evening hours, to the terror of all evil-doers, over their knitting and tea. There, every sinner gets his deserts, he is pricked with the knitting-needles, pinched with the sugar-tongs, burned in the spirit-lamp, and every biscuit or muschueken[9] soaked in the teacups gives a faithful picture of the condition of his terrified soul, if he were standing before this tribunal. What did this Rahnstadt Female Assembly care for Hans Bank's good opinion, or his cold feet? What for Habermann's well-paid accounts? These judges went seriously to work; they first took account, in an intelligent manner, of the antecedents,--as jurists say,--and they found the case very weak, for Habermann, for Louise, for the Frau Pastorin, even for Braesig. Malchen and Salchen Pomuchelskopp had circulated all the particulars, here a little drop and there a little drop, Salchen had gathered those precious pearls together, and arranged them in proper order, and even David had helped a little, and so the Female Assembly had a very correct representation of Franz's attachment to Louise, of Habermann's and the Frau Pastorin's match-making, and of Braesig's scandalous tale-bearing, which they were qualified to make use of, in the best possible manner.

The preliminaries had just been disposed of, when the wife of the city Syndic, (Recorder,) and the merchant's wife. Madam Krummhorn, came in together, and received a friendly scolding from the hostess, because they were so late. They defended themselves, in rather a condescending way, saying nothing of importance, but they sat down with such a swing, and took out their knitting with such significant shaking of heads, that the high tribunal must have been excessively stupid, if it had not observed that they had something special on their minds. It did its duty, beginning to feel round, by degrees, but the Frau Syndic and the Frau Krummhorn were prepared for resistance, and pinched their lips together, like live oysters, and the knives applied by the high tribunal were not successful in opening the shells. With sighs, the assembly took up its knitting-work, and soaked a couple of fresh muschueken in its tea, and with horror the two oysters became aware that their fast-locked news was stale, and that the best juice had run out from it; they opened, therefore, of their own accord, and the Frau Syndic asked the burgomeisterin, if a young gentleman had not called on the Herr Burgomeister that afternoon. Yes, said the Frau Burgomeisterin, the cousin of Herr von Rambow had been to see her husband, they had just been speaking of it.

"And what did he want?" asked the Frau Syndic.

"To inform himself how the examination about the stolen money had resulted, and he also asked whether the stories in Pumpelhagen--you know, the shooting--had any connection with that affair."

"And what else?" inquired Frau Syndic, looking down at her knitting.

"My husband has told me nothing more," said the burgomeisterin.

"And do you believe that?" asked Frau Syndic. Now it is a shame, before any tribunal, especially before such as this, to expect it to believe any simple, natural story. The burgomeisterin felt the accusation, which was implied in this question, and said sharply:

"If you know it better, dear, tell it yourself."

One oyster looked at the other, and both laughed aloud. Well, when such a fat oyster--for the Frau Syndic was fat, and Frau Krummhorn was also well-to-do--laughs so at another, it makes a great impression upon people, and as a natural consequence the company laid their knitting in their laps, and looked at the oysters.

"Good heavens!" cried the hostess, at last, "what do you know?"

"Frau Krummhorn may tell," said Frau Syndic, coolly. "She saw it as well as I."

Frau Krummhorn was a good woman, she could relate well and skilfully; but her gift of the gab had one failing, it was like Protonotary Scharfer's legs,--rudderless; and just like the protonotary, she was obliged to call out to one and another, "Hold me fast!" or "Turn me round!" She began: "Yes, he came right across the market-place."

"Who?" asked a stupid little assessor, who could not comprehend the business.

"Keep still!" cried everybody.

"So, he came right across the market-place. I knew him again directly, he had bought himself a new suit, of my husband, a black dress-coat, and blue trousers, eh, what do I say! a blue dress-coat and black trousers: I can see him, as if it were yesterday, he always wore yellow-leather breeches and boot-tops,--or was that Fritz Triddelsitz? I really am not quite sure. Yes, what was I saying?"

"He came right across the market-place," said a chorus of three voices.

"Exactly! He came right across the market-place, and into the Frau Syndic's street, I had just gone into Frau Syndic's, for she wanted to show me her new curtains, they came from the Jew Hirsch's,--no, I know,--the Jew Baeren's, who has lately become bankrupt. It is remarkable, my husband says, how all our Jews become bankrupt, and yet grow richer all the time, no Christian merchant can compete with these confounded Jews. How far had I got?"

"He came into the Frau Syndic's street."

"Ah, yes! The Frau Syndic and I were standing at the window, and could look right into the parlor of the Frau Pastorin Behrens, and the Frau Syndic said her husband had told her, if the Frau Pastorin would go to law about it,--no, not the Frau Pastorin, it was the Church, or else the Consistory,--then Herr Pomuchelskopp, or somebody else, must build a new parsonage at Gurlitz, and the Frau Syndic----"

But the Frau Syndic could contain herself no longer,--in putting up Frau Krummhorn to tell the story, she had prepared a fine rod for her own impatience, so she interrupted her, without ceremony:

"And then he went into the Frau Pastorin's and, without waiting, right into the parlor, and the old Frau rose from the sofa, and made such a motion of the hand, as if she would keep him away from her, and looked as distressed as if a misfortune had happened to her, and that might well be the case; and then she placed a chair, and urged him to sit down; but he did not sit down, and when the Frau Pastorin went out, he walked up and down the room, like--like----"

"Frau Syndic," said Frau Krummhorn, "you repeated a fine couplet this afternoon."

"Why, yes. 'King of deserts is the Lion, when he strides along his path.' Well, he strode up and down like such a king of deserts, and when the old inspector and his daughter came in, he rushed up to them, with the bitterest reproaches."

"But, good gracious!" said the little assessor, laying her knitting in her lap, "could you hear, then?"

"No, dear," said Frau Syndic, laughing at the stupidity of the little assessor, "we did not hear it; but Frau Krummhorn and I both saw it, saw it with our own eyes. And the old inspector stood before him, like a poor sinner, and looked down, and let it all go over his head, and his daughter threw her arm about his neck, as if she would protect him."

"Yes," interrupted Frau Krummhorn, "it was just so, as when old Stahl, the cooper, was arrested, because he had stolen hoops. His daughter Marik sprang between him and the policeman, Hoppner, and would not let her father be taken to the Rath-house, because of his white hair; but he had stolen the hoops, I am sure of it, for I had him put three new hoops about my milk-pail, and my husband said it was all the same to us, whether they were stolen or not, and for the milk also, it would not turn sour, on account of the stolen hoops; but I have noticed----"

"Right, Frau Krummhorn," said Frau Syndic, stopping her, "you noticed, also, how pale the girl looked, and how she trembled, when the young Herr turned to her, and released himself."

"No," said Frau Krummhorn, honestly, "she looked pale, but I did not see that she trembled."

"I saw it," said the Frau Syndic, "she trembled like that," shaking herself back and forth in her chair, as if it were a warm summer day, and she were shaking off the flies,--"and he stood before her, like this,"--here she stood up--"'The last link is broken,' as my son, the student, sings, and he looked at her so," and here she looked so angrily at the little assessor, that the latter grew quite red, "and then the old Frau Pastorin thrust herself between them, and tried to quiet her, and soothed him, and talked so much, and perhaps succeeded in a measure, for he gave them both the hand, at parting; but when he left the house, it was clearly to be read in his face, how glad he was that he had broken off with this company. Wasn't it so, Frau Krummhorn?"

"I didn't see that," said the merchant's wife, "I was looking at the young girl, how she stood with her arms crossed on her breast, and so pale. God bless me! I have seen pale girls enough,--only lately, my brother's daughter, she has the pale sickness, and the doctor is always saying, 'Iron! iron!' but she has iron enough, her father is a blacksmith. He might have been something very different, for our late father----"

"Ah, the poor girl!" cried the stupid little assessor, "she is such a pretty girl. And the poor old man! I cannot believe that, with his white hair, he has done such dreadful things."

"Dear," said the Frau Syndic, with a look at the little assessor, which, interpreted into ordinary language, meant "You goose!"--"dear, be careful of such indiscriminate compassion, and beware how you associate with people who are connected with criminals."

"Yes, he has done it," went from mouth to mouth, from stocking to stocking, from cup to cup. The little assessor was silenced; but all at once, a couple of gray, old, experienced advocates stood up for her, who usually in the tea-fights were retained as state-attorneys for the prosecution, but, to-day, undertook the defense. They had looked at each other and nodded, during the Frau Syndic's speech; they would let her tell it all out quietly, and then they would free their minds. And the Frau Syndic had done a stupid thing, she had forgotten the relationship, for the two old advocates were Frau Kurz, and Frau Rectorin Baldrian, and now was their time, and they took the Frau Syndic by the collar:

"Dear, how do you know that Habermann is a criminal?"

"Darling, didn't you know that Habermann is brother-in-law to my brother?"

"Dear, you should be careful of your sharp tongue."

"Darling, you have often got into trouble on account of it."

So they shot each other, with "Dear" and "Darling," back and forth across the table, and the tea-spoons clattered in the cups, and the cap-ribbons fluttered under the chins, the innocent knitting-work was bundled together, and stuffed into bags; the Frau Burgomeisterin took sides with the two advocates, for she had not forgotten the Frau Syndic's sharp words; the hostess ran from one to another, and begged by all that was holy, they would not disgrace her so sadly, as to break out into such a quarrel at her tea, and the little assessor began to cry bitterly, for she believed that she was the cause of the whole disturbance. But the mischief was done; half went away, the other half stayed, and Rahnstadt was divided into two parties.

And the people, about whom all the fuss was made, were sitting, if not peacefully, yet quietly, in their room, with no suspicion how much trouble and breaking of heads they had caused to their next neighbors, and how much strife and hatred. They had no idea that the stern look, which the Frau Syndic shot across the street from her red face signified anything to them, and the little Frau Pastorin remarked more than once, "From her looks the Frau Syndic must be a very determined and energetic person, who would keep good order in her household." And Louise had no suspicion that the pretty young girl, who went back and forth past their house, and cast many a stolen glance at her window, was filled to the depths of her heart with sympathy for her, and that this was the foolish little assessor, who had taken her part at the tea-fight.

Ah no, these people had something quite different to think of, and to care about; Louise must keep her sick heart still, and conceal it from the world, that her father might not see its bleeding wounds, which the visit of Franz had torn open afresh; Habermann was more quiet and profoundly thoughtful, after this visit than before; he had neither eyes nor thoughts for anything but his child. He sat lost in reflection, only, when his daughter looked paler and more absent-minded than usual, he would spring up, and run out into the little garden, and walk up and down, till he became composed. Ah, where was his hatred, when he saw his child's love! Where was his anger against the world, when, in the world nearest him, he saw only kindness and friendliness? Hate and anger must disappear from such a heart; but sadness remained, and the most pitiful compassion, for the destiny of his only child. The little Frau Pastorin thought no longer of her duster, she had something else to care for than tables and chairs. She must clear away the rubbish from two hearts, which had grown fast to her own, and she polished away at them, with her efforts to comfort, till they should be bright and clear again: but her labor was in vain, at least with Habermann. The sinews of the old man's strength were cut, with his good name, every joy and hope of life was gone, and the unwonted quiet and inaction made him more and more depressed, so that his case would have been a lamentable one, if the sweet voice of his child had not sometimes banished the evil spirit, as the singing of the youthful David the evil spirit of King Saul. All that Franz had urged so impressively, that the chief difficulty was removed by the finding of the book, that he must know what a weak, inconsiderate creature his cousin Axel was, and that his judgment could not harm him, that he should believe in him, though all the world were against him, for he had another world in his own breast; all this, which the Frau Pastorin repeated, he put aside, and remained firm in his resolve that, so long as his innocence was not fully established about the stolen money, so long his name was branded with disgrace, and he must hold back the young man, even against his will, that his own reputation might not be injured.

This was now, seen by daylight, sheer nonsense, and many a one might here ask, with reason, Why did he not, with his good conscience, go freely and boldly before the world, and scorn their lying rumors? And I agree, the question is reasonable; he should have done it, and he would have done it, if he had still been the old Habermann. But he was so no longer, through provocations, injuries and neglect, he had grown morbid, and now came this open accusation, and the dreadful scene with his master, and the young Frau had deserted him, for whom he would have given his life, and all this happened at a time when his heart had just opened to the hope of a happy future. The frosts of winter do no harm; spring will yet come; but when everything is fresh and growing, and the snow falls upon our green hopes, then there is snow and trouble, and all the little song-birds, who were building and pairing with the spring, are chilled and frozen in their nests, and the blighted groves are silent as death. The old man had prepared a great feast in his heart, and would welcome to it the fairest hopes, and now dark forms crowded in, and turned everything to confusion, and took away the only treasure, which he had laid up in his whole life; that gave him a blow, from which he could not recover. Take away a miser's treasure, which he has been scraping together for sixty years, and you take his life with it, and that is but a treasure which rust can devour; what is it to an honest name?

So the Frau Pastorin's only comfort lay in the last words of Franz: he could wait, and he should come again.

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Chapter XXXIII

So Habermann kept himself to himself, and sat in his room, or went into the garden, when the Frau Pastorin had visitors; and that was often the case, for one half of Rahnstadt believed they were causing great annoyance to the other half, who had put the Frau Pastorin's house under the ban, if they visited her frequently. So it came to pass, that the Rector Baldrian and Kurz the merchant were continually dropping in at the Frau Pastorin's; for their wives had discoursed to them so impressively, at home, over Habermann's innocence, that it was impossible for them to retain any doubt of it. From outside the city, came young Jochen, and his wife, and Mining, and also Pastor Gottlieb and Lining, often, of an afternoon; but Braesig came at all times, and made the Frau Pastorin's house his dove-cote, where his innocent old heart flew in and out, with a crop full of news, which he had gathered in Rexow, and Pumpelhagen, and Gurlitz, for his old friend. He informed him that the earth was dry,--that is to say, the fields,--but he did not always bring the olive-branch in his beak; when the talk was about Pomuchelskopp and Axel, he let it fall, in his anger, and the dove became a veritable raven. He was not to be brought back, when he had flown away, and he told Habermann to his face he came to divert him to other thoughts, and if it did not please him, he did not take it ill; but would come again the next day, with much to tell about the weather and the farming.

And in the spring of 1846, there was much to tell about these subjects. The winter had been warm and moist, and the spring came so early, that scarcely any one could remember the like; in February the grass was green, and the winter wheat was up and the clover sprouting, and the ground was wonderfully dry, and the farmers went about, considering if it were not time to plant peas. "Karl," said Braesig, "you shall see, it will be a pitiful story, the spring is too early, and when a bird sings too soon in the morning, the cat catches him before night; you shall see, we shall look sad enough, at the harvest. The devil take such early springs!" And on Palm-Sunday, he came into Habermann's room, with an open rape-blossom in his hand, and laid it on the table before him. "There, you see, it, is just as I told you! I picked that from your rape in Pumpelhagen. You shall see, Karl, in a week the louis-d'ors will be out; but it is of no good, full of bugs from top to bottom."

"Eh, Zachary, we have often had it so, and yet had a good crop of rape."

"Yes, Karl, the black; but the gray,--I have brought you the proof for your entertainment," and he reached to the table and picked out a little chrysalis; but when he opened it, there was nothing in it.

"That is what I say, Karl! These old skulking gray chafers are such sly old dogs, they are not to be reckoned on, and no more is the mischief they do. You shall see, Karl, this whole year will be a spoiled omelet, everything is going contrary to nature. How? Usually you will see crows in the rye, by May-day; this year you will see half-grown turkeys there! No, Karl, the world has turned round, and in some places the pastors are already preaching from their pulpits that the moon has crowded in between the sun and the earth, and that then the sun comes too near to the earth, and everything will be destroyed, that this is the beginning of the last day, and that people must repent."

"Ah, Zachary, that is all stuff and nonsense."

"So I say, Karl, and the repenting has turned out badly, in some places, for at Little Bibow, the day-laborers have struck work, and sold their bits of possessions to the Jews, and drink from morning to night, because they want to enjoy their property here. My Pastor Gottlieb would have preached something of the kind, but I stood by Lining, and she talked him out of it. But no good will come of such a year, Karl."

"I think, myself, that we shall have a bad harvest; but Kurz was here yesterday, and he talked so much about the fine winter wheat, which is standing in the fields----"

"Karl, I thought you had more sense. Kurz! I beg of you. Kurz! He knows what a salt herring ought to be, he understands that, for he is an experienced merchant; but when he talks about winter wheat, he should get up earlier in the morning,--that belongs to farmers, experienced farmers. And this is just what I say, Karl, everybody thinks he may meddle with our business, and these old city folks are as wise as the bees. Well, if any one practices farming pour paster la tante, just for his own amusement,--a la bonc[oe]ur! I have no objections; but if he sets himself as a judge--well! Kurz! In syrup casks and cards, he can see straight enough; but when he looks at a rye-field, there is a veil before his eyes. But what I was going to say is, next week I am coming to you, bag and baggage."

"No, Braesig, no! If this proves a bad year, you will be necessary to the young people, and the young pastor knows too little of farming to be able to get on without you."

"Yes, Karl, he is stupid, and if you think so,--for I have quite given myself up to you,--then I will stay with him. But now, good-bye. I don't know what ails me, but my stomach feels badly: I will see if Frau Pastorin hasn't a little kuemmel for me."

With that he went out, but put his head in again to say, "I had almost forgotten about Pumpelhagen, they have a management there, now, that you could warm your hands and feet at. Yesterday I met your Triddlesitz, at the boundary, and although he is such an infamous greyhound, he almost cried. 'Herr Inspector,' said he, 'you see I lay all night, thinking about the management, and not able to sleep, and when I had planned it all out, in the nicest way, and given the people their orders, in the morning, do you see, the Herr comes out with his arm in a sling, and spoils my plans, and sends one laborer here, and another there, running about the fields like hens with their heads cut off, and I run after them and get them together again, and get things in order, and then, in the afternoon, he tears it all to pieces again!' Karl, it must be a great satisfaction for you,--that is, to see that they cannot get on without you." Then he shut the door, and went off, but, after a little while, made his appearance again: "Karl, what I was going to say--half the horses in Pumpelhagen are used up; a couple of days ago, there stood a loaded manure-cart, and the poor beasts stood there so forlorn, head and ears down, just like the peasants in church. And it is not because they are overworked, but because they have not enough to eat, for your young Herr has no superfluity in his barns, and he has sold this spring three tons of oats and two tons of peas to the Jews, and now his granary is as bare as if the cattle had licked it. And now he must buy oats; but the poor screws that earn his bread don't get it, most of it goes to the old thorough-bred mares who do nothing but steal a living from others. There is great injustice in the world! Well, good-bye, Karl!" and this time he really departed.

That was a sad picture, which Braesig had drawn of the situation at Pumpelhagen; but in truth, matters were much worse, for he had said nothing of the influence which Axel's constant need of money had upon his temper, and this was the saddest. Continual embarrassment not only makes a man out of humor, it makes him hard towards his inferiors, and our Axel fell into the old fault; he believed he was so badly off because his people fared too well, and Pomuchelskopp was always telling him so. He took from them one thing here, and another there, and when his natural good-nature got the upper hand, he gave them again something here and there; but everything capriciously,--and that has a bad effect. At first, the people had laughed at his confused management, but that is always the beginning, and the laughing soon became a grumbling, and the grumbling broke out into accusations and complaints. Under Habermann's rule, the day-laborers had always received their grain and money at the right time; now they must wait, until there was something to give them; that was bad. And if they went to their master with complaints they were snubbed; that was worse. Discontent was universal.

Axel comforted himself with the new, harvest, and with the new receipts; but, unfortunately, Braesig proved a true prophet; when the harvest was ripe it was very thin, and when it was garnered, the barns were only half full, and the old experienced country people said to the new beginners: "Take care! Spare in time, and you will have in need! The grain will not hold out." The advice was good, but of what use was it to Axel? He must have money, so he had most of his grain thrashed out, for seed-corn and for sale. And grain was for sale at a fine price, for the Jews saw how it must turn out, and bought up on speculation, and so to the natural scarcity was added an artificial. The old day-laborers, at Pumpelhagen, shook their heads, as the loads of rye were driven from the Court: "What will become of us! What will become of us! We have got no bread-corn." And the housewives stood together, wringing their hands: "See, neighbor, that little heap! Those are all my potatoes, and all poor, and what are we to live on this winter?" And so the scarcity was universal, and it had come over this blessed land like a thief in the night, no one had thought of it, no one had prepared for it, since no one knew what to expect. But it was the worst in the little towns, and there it was the hardest for the poor mechanics,--for laboring men, there was still labor, and their children went about begging from door to door, and afterwards there were soup-kitchens organized; but the poor mechanics? They had no work,--no one employed them,--and they did not understand begging, nor did it suit their honor and reputation. Ah, I went once into the room of a right clever, industrious burgher's wife, when the dinner stood upon the table, and the hungry children stood around it, and as I entered the room the Frau threw, a cloth over the platter, and when she had gone out to call her husband, I lifted the cloth, and what did I find? Boiled potato-skins. That was their dinner.

At such times, our Lord sits in the heavens, and sifts the good from the bad, so that every one may clearly distinguish between them; the good, he keeps by himself, in his sieve, that he may take his pleasure in them, and that they may bear fruit, the bad fall through with the tares and the cockles and the nettles,--these are their unrighteous wishes, their wicked intentions, and their bad thoughts,--and when one looks to see if they bear fruit, the weeds are growing rapidly, and the blossoms make a fair show before the world, but when the harvest comes, and the sickle goes through the field, then their grain falls light on the soil, and the master turns away from the field, for it stands written, "By their fruits ye shall know them."

Many a one stood firm in this trial, and gave with full hands, in spite of his own necessities, and the Landrath von O---- and the Kammerath von E---- and the Paechter H---- and also our old Moses, and many others, remained in the Lord's sieve, and bore good fruit in these bad times, but Pomuchelskopp fell through, and Slusuhr and David, and lay among the tares and the nettles, and they sat together at Gurlitz, and planned how they might fatten their swine upon other people's misfortunes. And David and Slusuhr knew well enough how to do it, if they only had money enough, they would lend it out to the poor and the distressed, to the hungry and the freezing, at high interest; but the capital which they had at their command, for the time being, was all embarked in this fine business, and they came now to the Herr Proprietor to get him to advance money and he should share in their profits. But the far-sighted Herr would not do this, it would be in everybody's mouth, and he should be blamed; so he said that he had nothing to spare, and must keep the little he had to bring his cattle and his people through.

"As for your cattle," said Slusuhr insolently, "I give in; but for the people? Do me the favor to say nothing about them! Your people are begging all over the country, and just as we drove by the parsonage, your housewives and their children were standing in the parson's yard, and your old friend Braesig stood by two great pails of pea soup, and the young Frau Pastorin ladled it into their kettles.

"Let them! let them!" said Pomuchelskopp, "I wouldn't hinder any body in a good work. They may have it to spare; I haven't, and I have no money either."

"You have the Pumpelhagen notes," said David.

"Yes, do you think he can pay them? He has had a poorer harvest than the rest of us, and the little he had he has threshed out and sold."

"That is just it," said Slusuhr, "now is your time. Such a fine opportunity may not come again, and he cannot take it unkindly of you, for you are yourself pressed for money, and must pay the notes to David. Now don't make any objections, but shake the tree, for the plums are ripe."

"How high is the sum total?" inquired David.

"Well," said Pomuchelskopp, going to his desk, and scratching his head, "I have his notes here for eleven thousand thalers."

"Oh, nonsense!" said Slusuhr, "it must be more than that."

"No, it isn't more than that,--I lent him eight thousand on security, a year and a half ago, when he asked me."

"Then you have done a stupid thing, but you must first give him notice, and then you can sue him," said the notary; "but never mind! Give me the eleven thousand thalers, we can distress him finely, in these hard times."

Muchel would not consent, at first; but Haenning put her head in at the door, and he knew very well what she wanted, so he gave the notes to Slusuhr and David.

Then the old game was played over again in Pumpelhagen, Slusuhr and David came, and set Axel burning, as if with fever, and attacked him more sharply than ever, and this time there was no talk of extension. He must and should pay, and he had'nt a shilling, not even the prospect of getting any money. It came over him like Nicodemus in the night, and for the first time the dark thought rose in his mind that this was a concerted plan, that his friendly neighbor at Gurlitz was the real cause of his embarrassment, and that he must have some special design in sending the notes to be cashed through these two rascals; but what it could be, remained hidden from his eyes. But what availed thinking and grumbling, he must have money, and from whom? He knew no one, and in spite of the suspicion which had risen in his mind, his thoughts returned to his neighbor Pomuchelskopp. He must help; who else was there? He mounted his horse, and rode over to Gurlitz.

Muchel received him with uncommon friendliness and cordiality, as if neighbors should be drawn nearer together, in these hard times, and stand by each other faithfully, in their troubles. He told great stories of his bad harvest, and complained sadly of his pecuniary embarrassments, so that Axel was quite taken aback in his purposes, and feel almost ashamed to come to a man who was in such distress, to ask for assistance. But need breaks iron, and he asked him, finally, why he had served him so as to give up his notes to those two bloodsuckers; and Pomuchel folded his hands on his stomach, and looked very mournfully at the young man, saying,--

"Ah, Herr von Rambow, in my great need! Do you see!" and he opened his desk, and showed a drawer, in which a couple of hundred thalers were lying, "There is all I have, and I must take care of my people and my cattle, and I thought perhaps you might have money lying idle."

"But," said Axel, "why not come to me yourself?"

"I did not like to," said Muchel; "you know the old proverb, 'Money joins enemies, and severs friends,' and we are such good friends."

Yes, that was true. Axel said; but these two had distressed him grievously, and he was in the most dreadful embarrassment.

"Did they do that?" exclaimed Pomuchelskopp, "but they ought not! I gave it to them on condition that my dear Herr Neighbor should not be distressed. You will of course want the note extended, it will cost you a little something, perhaps, but that can be no objection under the circumstances."

Axel knew that, but he did not let himself be so easily persuaded, his condition was too desperate, and he begged earnestly that if the Herr Proprietor had no money to spare, he would help him with his credit. "Good heavens! gladly," said Muchel, "but with whom? Who has any money now?"

"Could not Moses help?" asked Axel.

"I don't know him at all," was the reply, "I have no dealings with him. Your father did business with him, and you know him yourself. Yes, I would go and see him."

That was all the comfort Axel got; smoothly as an eel, the Herr Proprietor slipped through his fingers, and when he got on his horse, and rode home, all was dark around him, but it was darker still within.

David and Slusuhr came again, they beset him in the most shameless manner, and whatever he might say of Pomuchelskopp's later intentions, they would know nothing about them, they only knew that they must have their money.

He rode hither and thither, he knocked here and there; but there was nothing to be had anywhere; and weary and discouraged he came home, and there he was met by the quiet eyes of his wife, which said, clearly enough, that she suspected everything, but her mouth was silent, and her lips closely compressed, as if a fair book, in which stood many a word of comfort, must remain forever closed to him. Since the time when Habermann had been sent off in such a disgraceful manner, and she had become aware of the great injustice she had done him, out of love to her husband, she had said nothing more to him about his difficulties; she could not help him, and she would give him no occasion to betray himself and other people with new falsehoods. But this time he was, for the moment, in great anxiety, and his excitable, vexed, hasty demeanor betrayed his distress more fully than usual, and when she retired that night, and looked long at her child, the thought flashed through her head and heart, he was yet the father of her dearest on earth, and he seemed to her so pitiable that she wept bitterly over him, and she promised herself to speak to him with friendliness, the next morning, and to take upon herself, willingly, her share of his self-imposed burdens.

But when morning came. Axel come down stairs, with singing and piping, and called Triddelsitz, and gave him instructions, and called for Krischan Daesel, and ordered him to put the horses to the carriage, and prepare for several days absence, and came in to his wife with a face which was not merely free from distress but full of security, so that she was astounded, and took back her promise.

"Are you going a journey?" she asked.

"Yes, I must travel on business, and shall probably go as far as Schwerin. Have you any commands for the sisters?"

She had merely greetings to send, and after a little while Axel said good-bye, and got into the carriage, and drove to Schwerin. He had told his wife but half the truth; he had no other business but at Schwerin, and with his sisters. It had occurred to him, during the night, that his sisters had money; his father had left them a little house, with a garden, and fifteen thousand thalers, and their capital was invested at four and a half per cent., and they lived on the interest; to be sure, in rather slender circumstances, but the Kammerrath could not do better for them, and had reckoned that the brothers-in-law, and especially Axel, would be able to assist them a little. This capital had occurred to Axel in the night, he could use it at once, it would help him immediately, and he could pay them interest for it, as well as strange people, but he would give them five per cent., and, though he was hard up for the moment, the devil must be in it, if he could not pay them again. This prospect was what had so enlivened him.

When the young Herr came to Schwerin, and explained his business to the sisters, and complained of the bad year, the poor old creatures became very soft-hearted and comforted him, as if the whole world had gone against him, and when Albertine, who was the cleverest of them, and who looked after the money matters, began to speak very gently of securities, the other two, and especially Fidelia, interrupted her. That would be very narrow-minded, their brother was in need, and so were many people in the country, and their brother was their pride, and their only dependence, so their blessed father had said, shortly before his death; and when Axel readily promised to give them security on the estate Albertine surrendered, and the three old maidens were greatly delighted that they could help their dear brother. He was also fortunate, in getting hold of the money; a couple of Jews had it, and he found them, and a little interest was due on it, and this he took likewise, for he intended, of course, that his sisters should receive their full fifteen thousand thalers again, and from this time get five per cent, interest on it.

He returned to his house, in the week after New Year, 1847, and a couple of days later, when David and Slusuhr came again, expecting to torment him, he counted out the money on the table, paid his notes, and made a bow to their long faces, which both translated into the words: "A good riddance, gentlemen!"

"What is this?" asked Slusuhr, as they got into their carriage.

"God bless me!" said David, "he has money. Did you see? He had still a great packet of money."

"Yes, but how did he get it?"

"Well, we must ask Zodick."

Zodick was a poor cousin of David's, whom he always took with him, as coachman, but his real business was to listen to the people on the estate.

"Zodick, did you see, did you hear where he has been?"

"The coachman told me he had been to Schwerin."

"To Schwerin? What business had he at Schwerin?"

"He got the money there."

"In Schwerin? It is what I have always said to my father, these nobility stand by each other. He must have got it from the rich one, from the cousin."

"So?" asked Slusuhr, taking a packet of money out of his pocket, and holding it under David's nose. "Smell of that! Does that smell of nobility? It smells of garlic; he got it from your confounded Jews. But it is all one,--we must go to Pomuchelskopp. Ha, ha, ha! How the crafty, little beast will hop about with anger!"

And in that he was right, Pomuchelskopp was beyond all control, when he learned that his blow had not succeeded: "I said so, I said so; it was not yet time; but, Haeuning, Haeuning! you crowded me so!"

"You are a blockhead!" said Haeuning, and left the room.

"Take hold again," said Slusuhr; "never mind this, now you can give him notice, for St. John's day, for the eight thousand which you have let him have."

"No, no," whispered Pomuchelskopp, "that is the only foothold I have in that fine estate; if he should pay me, my plans are all spoiled. And he has still more money?" he asked of David.

"He had a large packet and a small packet."

"Well," said Slusuhr, "you will have your way, like the dog in the well; but he must be an uncommon blockhead if he doesn't suspect, now, that you are at the bottom of the whole affair; and, if he has smelt a rat, it amounts to the same thing, whether you give him notice now, or a couple of years later."

"Children, children!" cried this dignified old proprietor, stamping and puffing up and down the room, like a steam-engine, "if he has really suspected it, he cannot do without me; I am the only friend that can help him."

"Well, don't help him, then. St. John's day is the best time, then he has no money coming in."

"Hasn't he though? He has the wool-money, and the rape-money."

"Yes, but then he has interest to pay, and most of it will have been spent beforehand."

"No, I cannot do it, I cannot do it; the foot which I have once planted in that fine estate, I can never draw back," said our old philanthropist.

"It is a great pity for a man to set himself about something, and then be afraid of the means," said the Herr Notary to David, as they drove home. "Our fine business in Pumpelhagen is at an end. I shall merely have to deal with the old woman, instead of him, the old woman will put it through."

"A dreadfully strong, clever woman," said David.

"Well, there is no help for it. Our milch cow at Pumpelhagen is dry. And it would all have gone well enough, David, if you had not been such a dunce. Why couldn't you make your father give notice for his seven thousand thalers? Then we two could have stripped him finely."

"Good heavens!" cried David, "he wouldn't do it. There he goes to old Habermann, and there they sit and talk, and when I say, 'Father, dear, give notice!' then he says, 'Give notice of your own money, I will take care of mine.'"

"He is getting childish then, and a man whose judgment is not worth more should be put under guardians," said Slusuhr.

"Well, you know, I have thought of that; but, you know,--it is so--well, so--so--and then, you know, the father is too clever!"

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Chapter XXXIV

Axel, by the help of what remained of his sisters' money, slipped along through the spring and half the summer of 1817, and, as he at last came to the bottom of his purse, he preferred to sell his wool in anticipation, rather than apply to his honest old neighbor. He saw, at last, the thick knuckles of Pomuchelskopp behind the whole affair, and his suspicion grew more and more lively that he had been sheared like one of the sheep, and that his dear old neighbor had kept the wool, though of what his chief aim might be he had not the least conception. He grew colder and colder towards Pomuchelskopp, he no longer visited him, he went out through the garden into the fields, when he saw from the window the Herr Proprietor coming to call, and his wife rejoiced silently at the change. We might rejoice, also, if he had acted intelligently and with consideration, and had broken off the intercourse with a cool head, but he worked himself up into such an opposition to Pomuchelskopp, that he wished never to set eyes on him again, and when the opportunity occurred, at the patriotic union at Rahnstadt, and the Herr Proprietor pressed up to him in a very friendly way, he not only snubbed him, but treated him in the most contemptuous manner, and used such bitter words that all the people who were assembled there took it for a reproach against Pomuchelskopp for his money-lending. This was, if not dishonorable, certainly extremely foolish, for he still owed Pomuchelskopp eight thousand thalers, which he was not ready to pay, and, if he had known the Herr Proprietor as well as he said, he must also have known what the effect of such treatment would be. Pomuchelskopp could swallow a considerable dose of rudeness, but this, in the presence of all the people, was too much for him, and his vengeance lay too close at hand for him not to avail himself of it. He said nothing, but he went round to Slusuhr the notary: "You can give the Herr von Rambow notice on St. John's day, to pay my eight thousand thalers on St. Anthony's. I know, now, where I am; we shall get him in our fingers again, and he shall smart to pay for it."

"If only Moses would give notice too!" cried Slusuhr, and this pious wish was destined to fulfilment, but later. A change had also come over young Jochen, although no one but Frau Nuessler had thought of it; she, indeed, had long suspected that her Jochen would come to a bad end, and that, at last, he would not allow himself to be ruled by any one. And the time had now come. Jochen had, from the first, laid by money every year: at first indeed, only a couple of hundred thalers; but afterwards the hundreds became thousands, and though he did not trouble himself to count the money, his wife told him, every New-Year's morning, how much they had saved the past year, and his soul rejoiced in it, though he scarcely knew why; but he had been accustomed to it now for many years, and custom and life were, for Jochen, the same thing. When the bad year came, Frau Nuessler said to Jochen at the harvest: "This will be a bad year, you shall see we shall have to use some oL our capital."

"Mother!" said Jochen, looking at her with astonishment, "you wouldn't do it!"

But this New-Year's morning his dear wife came and told him she had, this year, taken up three thousand thalers, and God grant they might get through with that! "We cannot let our people and our cattle starve," she added.

Jochen sprang to his feet, a very unusual thing, trod on Bauschan's toes, another unusual thing, looked stupidly in his wife's face, but said nothing, which was not unusual, and went silently out of the room, Bauschan following him. Noon came, Jochen was not there, a fine spare-rib was smoking on the table, Jochen did not appear; his wife called him, but he did not hear; she sought him, but he could not be found; for he was standing in the dark cow-house, in one hand the tar-bucket, in the other, the tar-brush, with which he was marking crosses on his cattle; Bauschan stood beside him. After a long time, his wife discovered him at this occupation.

"Good gracious, Jochen, why don't you come to dinner?"

"Mother, I have not time."

"What are you doing here in the cow-stable, with the tar-bucket?"

"I am marking the cows, that we must sell."

"God forbid!" cried Frau Nuessler, snatching the brush out of his hand. "What is this? my best milk-givers!"

"Mother," said Jochen quietly, "we must get rid of some of our people and our cows, they will eat us out of house and home." And it was fortunate he had begun on the cattle, and not on the people, otherwise the boys and girls might have been running about Rexow, that New Year's day, with tar crosses marked on their backs.

With great difficulty Frau Nuessler coaxed him away from this business, and got him into the house, but then Jochen announced it as his positive decision, he would manage no longer, and he could manage no longer, and Rudolph must come, and marry Mining, and undertake the management. Frau Nuessler could do nothing with him, and sent for Braesig. And Mining, who had heard enough, for her share, fled to her little gable-room, and held her little heart with both hands, and said to herself that was wrong, why should not her father take his ease, and why should not Rudolph carry on the farm, he was able, Hilgendorff had written so; and, if Uncle Braesig was opposed to her in this matter, she would tell him, once for all, she would no longer be his godchild.

When Braesig came, and the matter was explained to him, he placed himself before young Jochen, and said to him, "What are you doing, young Jochen? Painting your cows with tar crosses, on the blessed New-Year's morning? and going to sell your wife's best milk-givers? and going to give up the management?"

"Braesig, Rudolph can manage; why should not Mining get married, when Lining is married? Is Mining any worse?" And he looked sideways at Bauschan, and Bauschan shook his head.

"Jochen," said Braesig, "that is all right. You have spoken a very clever word in your foolishness,"--Jochen looked up--"no, Jochen, it is no special credit to you, it is only because it suits my ideas, for I am of the opinion that Rudolph must manage here. Keep still, Frau Nuessler," said he, "just come here, a moment." And he drew Frau Nuessler into another room, and put the case before her. Until Easter, he should stay with Pastor Gottlieb, and till then, he could look after matters here; but, after Easter, Rudolph must manage, "and that will be good for you," he added, "for he will make no tar crosses on your cows, and it will be good for him too, he will get used to managing, by degrees, and then, a year from Easter, we, will have joyful wedding."

"But, Braesig, that will never do, how can Mining and Rudolph live in one house, what will people say?"

"Frau Nuessler, I know people have a very bad opinion of their fellow-creatures when they are betrothed; I know, when I had three,--eh, what was I saying? Well, Mining can go to Pastor Gottlieb's at Easter, I shall go to Rahnstadt, to Habermann, and then my room will be empty."

"Well, that would do," said Frau Nuessler.

And so it was all arranged. Rudolph came at Easter, but Mining must go, and as she sat in the carriage with bag and baggage, she wiped the tears from her eyes, and thought herself the most unfortunate being in the world, because her mother had thrust her out of her father's house among strangers,--by which she meant her sister Lining,--and that without any reason; and she clenched her little fist, when she thought of Braesig, for her mother had let it out that Braesig had advised it. "Yes," said she, "and now I am to go into his room, which he has so smoked up with tobacco, that one can write his name with his finger, on the walls."

But how she opened her eyes, when she entered the room! In the middle of the room stood a table, covered with a white cloth, and on it stood a pretty glass vase with a great bouquet of such flowers as the season afforded; snow drops and blue violets, yellow daffodils and hyacinths, and under it lay a letter to Mining Nuessler, in Uncle Braesig's handwriting, and as she opened it she was almost frightened, for it was a copy of verses, and this was the first time she had received such homage. Uncle Braesig had borrowed an old verse-book from Schultz the carpenter, and found a couple of verses to suit him, and added another out of his own head, and this was the letter:

"To my dear Godchild!

"The room is mine And yet not mine, He who was before me Thought it his own.

"He went out And I came in, When I am gone It will be so again.

"Yes, parting and leaving are sad, But next year, we shall be glad, Be good and contented here, And the wedding shall be next year!"

Mining turned red a little, over the last line, and fell upon Lining's neck, laughing and scolding Braesig; but in heart she waved him a friendly kiss. And so Mining was here, Rudolph at Rexow, and Braesig with the Frau Pastorin and Habermann at Rahnstadt.

There was not much change in Habermann, he still kept by himself, although many troubled themselves about him; the rector preached him a little sermon now and then, Kurz entertained him with agricultural conversation, and old Moses hobbled up the stairs, and asked his advice about his business; but this did not cheer the old man, he tormented himself, day and night, with thoughts of his child, and with the long-deferred hope that the day-laborer Regel might return, and by a full confession free him from these shameful suspicions. The laborer had sent letters, and also money, to his wife and children; but never let himself be seen. The little Frau Pastorin had a secret anxiety lest her old friend should become incurably morbid, and she felt truly thankful, when Braesig finally came. Braesig could help her, and Braesig would; if any one could, he was the man. His restless and yet good-natured disposition left his Karl no peace, Karl must do this, and do that, he must go walking with him, he must listen to all the stupid books that Braesig got out of the Rahnstadt Circulating Library, and if nothing else would rouse him, Braesig would make the most extravagant assertions, till he had stirred Karl up to contradict him, and engaged him in a dispute. In this way, there seemed a real improvement in Habermann; but if the conversation turned upon Pumpelhagen or Franz, it was all over, and the evil spirit came upon him again.

Louise was much better off, she was not one of the woman who believe that if their love is blighted they must doctor themselves all their lives, and must show the world, through a weary, dreamy behavior, how sick their poor hearts are, that death alone can heal them, and that they are of no more use in the world. No, she did not belong to this species, she had strength and courage to bear a great grief by herself, she needed not the compassion of the world. Deep, deep at the bottom of her heart lay her love, like pure gold, and she granted no one a sight of it, its very shining was locked up from the world, and when she went into this secret place, in quiet hours, and looked at her treasure, she changed it into little money for every-day use, and gave it out, here and there, to all with whom she had to do; and this love the world perceived, but not the other. When our Lord sees such a heart striving bravely against misfortune, and trying to turn it into good, then he helps it, and sends many a chance to its help, of which no one thinks. Chances men call them, but, rightly viewed, they are the consequences of many other consequences, of which the first cause is hidden from our sight.

Such a chance befell Louise, in the Spring after the Female Vehmgericht. She was coming home from Lining's at Gurlitz, and going between the Rahnstadt gardens, along a footpath, when a garden gate opened, and a pretty little maiden stepped out, blushing rosy red, and put into her hand a nosegay of lilacs and tulips and narcissus. "Ah, take them," said the little assessor,--for it was she,--and as Louise stood, rather astonished, not knowing how she came there, the tears ran down the little assessor's cheeks, and she covered her hand over her eyes, and said, "I should be so glad to give you a pleasure."

Well, that was so kind and friendly! Louise threw her arm about her, and kissed the little assessor, and the latter drew her into the garden, to the arbor, and then they sat under the blossoming lilacs, and Louise and the innocent little girl conceived a warm friendship for each other, for from the coals of love friendship is easily kindled, and from this time the little assessor was a daily guest at the Frau Pastorin's, and all in the house rejoiced at her coming. When Habermann heard the first tone of the Frau Pastorin's old piano, he came down stairs, and sat in the corner, and listened, while the little assessor brought sweet music out of the old instrument, and when that was over, the Frau Pastorin had her diversion, for the little assessor was a doctor's daughter, and doctors and doctors' children always have something new to tell, and although the Frau Pastorin was not exactly inquisitive she was very glad to know what was going on in the world, and since the time she had lived in the city this little peculiarity had developed in her, and she said to Louise, "I don't know; but it seems as if one was glad to know what is going on around one; but when my sister Triddelsitz tells me anything, it all sounds so sharp, but when little Anna tells anything it sounds so innocent and gay; she must be a good little child."

But the real significance of this friendship first appeared when the bad year came, and its consequences entered the little city,--poverty and hunger and misery. Little Anna's father was a doctor, and he had no title at all; but he had something better, he had a compassionate heart, and when he had told of this and that, at home, the little assessor would go to the Frau Pastorin and Louise, and tell it over again, and the Frau Pastorin would go to her store-room, and into the pantry, and down into the cellar, and pack a basket,--she always did that herself, nobody else must meddle with it,--and the two little maidens carried it off, in the half-twilight, and when they came back, they gave each other a kiss, and the Frau Pastorin one, and Habermann one, and that was all. And when the soup-kitchen was to be started, the ladies of Rahnstadt held a great "perpendicle," as Braesig called it, to decide what it was best to do, and the Frau Syndic said, "It should be something noble," and when she was asked what she meant by that, she said it was all one to her; but it must be noble, otherwise she would have nothing to do with it. And the old Vehmgerichters said there must be a distinction made between the wicked and the good poor, the wicked might go hungry; and a young lady, who was just married, said they ought to have gentlemen at the head; but that was a great mistake, all were opposed to her, and the Frau Syndic said, so long as she had lived--and that must be a good many years, interjected Frau Krummhorn--cooking and nursing had come under the rule of the ladies, what did men know about such things? but the business must be noble. And the conventicle separated, as wise as it had been when it came together, and when the soup-kitchen was started, two pretty little maidens, in white aprons, served together at the fire, and put the gifts for the poor into the soup-kettles, and sat down with the wicked and the good poor, on the same bench, and peeled potatoes for the next day, and scraped turnips, and this was the small money into which Louise had changed her golden treasure, and the little assessor added her groschens to the sum.

Now came Braesig, and relieved the little assessor of the out-door errands, for he was peculiarly fitted for such duties, and when he had not the confounded Podagra, he ran about the city, saying to Habermann, "Karl, Dr. Strump says Polchicum and exercise, and the water-doctor says cold water and exercise; they both agree on the exercise, and I find that it is good for me. What I was going to say--Moses sends his regards to you, and is coming to see you this afternoon."

"What? Has he got back from Doberau, from the baths? I thought he was not to come back until August."

"Yes, Karl, it is St. James' day, to-day, and August is almost here. But--what I was going to say,--the old Jew has quite renewed his youth, he looks really well, and he ran about the room, just to show me how spry he was. But I must go to old widow Klaehn, she is waiting in her garden for me, because I promised her some turnip-seed, and then I must go to Frau Krummhorn, she wants to show me her young kittens, to see which one she shall keep for us, for, Karl, we need a good mouser; and then I must go to Risch, the blacksmith, to see about the shoes for Kurz's old saddle-horse. The old thing has wind-gall, as bad, I tell you, Karl, as Moses' David's corns. You don't know, perhaps, if your young Herr has got a horse with a wind-gall, he might like to buy the old thing from Kurz, for the completeness of his lazaretto. And, towards evening, I must go to the Frau Burgomeister, for they have three or four bushels of rye, and I shall have a sort of feast, since it was cut to-day, and I shall of course have Streichelbier, so that it will seem quite like farming. Well, good-bye, Karl, this afternoon I will read to you, for I have brought home an amusing book." And so he ran off again, up street and down, like a Jack of all trades, toiling for other people; for since in our little Mecklenburg towns the chief interests turn upon farming matters, he advised here and prophesied there, helped this one and that, and was soon the oracle and errand boy of the whole city. After dinner he sat down by his Karl, with a book in his hand, to read to him out of it, and if we peep over his shoulder we may read the title; "The Frogs of Aristophanes, translated from the Greek." We open our eyes; but how would the old Greek have opened his eyes over the cultivation of the Rahnstadters, had he, after two thousand years, peeped over uncle Braesig's shoulder, and perceived, from the stamp, that his confounded Frog-nonsense was ranged with the various "Blossoms" and "Pearls," and "Forget-me-nots" and "Roses," in the Rahnstadt Circulating Library. How the rogue would have laughed! Uncle Braesig did not laugh, he sat there very sober, he had on his horn spectacles with the great round glasses, which shone like a pair of coach-lanterns, he held the book as far from his body as his arm would reach, and began:

"The Frogs of Aristop-Hannes--I read 'Hannes,' Karl, for I think 'Hanes' must be a mistake in the printing; for it told about 'Schinder-Hannes,' in a book I read once, and if this is only half as dreadful, we may be well contented, Karl." Then he began, and read on, in Schoolmaster Strull's style, and Habermann sat there, as if he were paying close attention, but soon his old thoughts slipped in, and when Braesig moistened his finger, to turn over the fourth leaf, he saw, with righteous anger, that his old friend had closed his eyes. Braesig stood up, and placed himself before him, and looked at him. It is an old story, that the miller wakes when the mill stops grinding, and the listeners wake when the sermon is at an end, and so it was with Habermann; he opened his eyes, took a couple of puffs at his pipe, and said, "Fine, Zachary, very fine!"

"How? you say 'fine,' and you are fast asleep."

"Don't take it unkindly," said the old man, coming, for the first time, to full consciousness, "but I havn't understood a word. The book must be very dry, or do you understand any of it?"

"Not much, Karl, but I have paid a groschen for it, and when I pay a groschen, I want to get my money's worth."

"Yes; but if you don't understand it?"

"People read for other things than understanding, Karl; people read pour paster la tante, with the books. Just see," and he was going to explain this remark, when some one rapped at the door, and Moses came in.

Habermann went up to him: "This is good, Moses! And how fresh you look, really handsome!"

"So my Bluemchen tells me, but she has said that for these fifty years."

"Well, how did you like it, at the bath?"

"Do you want to hear some news, Habermann. One is pleased twice at the bath, first, when one arrives, and secondly, when one goes away. It is just as it is with a horse and a garden and a house, one is glad to get them, and glad to get rid of them."

"Yes, you are not used to being idle, you had too much business in your head."

"Well, what is business? I am an old man. My business is not to get into new affairs, and to get my money out of the old. And I came to talk to you about that; I am going to give notice of my seven thousand thalers at Pumpelhagen."

"Oh, Moses, not yet! You would throw the Herr von Rambow into great embarrassment."

"Well, I don't know, he must have money, he must have a great deal of money. David and the notary and Pomuchelskopp have been at him, and wanted to clear him out of his nest, this last New-year, but he paid them eleven thousand thalers, at one time. I made it out from David. I also heard it from Zodick. 'Where did you go yesterday?' I asked him. 'To the court,' he said. 'Zodick, you lie,' I told him. Then he swore it, till he grew black in the face. But I kept saying 'Zodick, you lie.' At last I said, 'I will tell you something,' said I. 'The horses are mine, and the carriage is mine, and the coachman is mine; if you don't tell the truth, I will send you away, and then you will be a beggar.' Then he thought better of it, and told me about the eleven thousand thalers, and yesterday he told me Pomuffelskopp had given him notice of the eight thousand thalers, on St. Anthony's day. Now, Pomuffelskopp is a shrewd man, he must know how he stands."

"God bless me!" cried Habermann, and his hatred was forgotten, and the old attachment struck through him, without his being conscious of it himself, "and do you mean to give notice, too? Moses, your money is safe."

"Well, suppose it is safe. But I know many places where it would be safer," and, looking sharply at the two old inspectors, one after the other, he added, with a singular expression, "I have seen him, I have also spoken with him."

"Whom? the Herr von Rambow? Where then?" asked Habermann.

"At Doberau, at the gaming-table I saw him," said Moses, venomously, "and I spoke with him at my lodgings."

"Good heavens!" cried Habermann, "he never did that in his life before. How has the unhappy young man come to that?"

"I always said," remarked Braesig, "this Herr Lieutenant was going to the devil with his eyes open."

"Just heavens!" exclaimed Moses, "how they threw the gold about! They had great heaps of louis-d'ors before them, and put them down here, and put them down there, and shoved them here, and shoved them there, and is that a business? and do you call that an amusement? A thing to make one's hair stand on end! And there he was among them. 'Zodick,' said I,--for Zodick had come with my carriage, I was going away the next day,--'Zodick, place yourself here, and pay attention to the Pumpelhagen Herr, how it goes with him,'--it made me sick to look on. And in the evening Zodick came, and he said he had lost, and in the morning the young Herr came to me, and wanted a thousand thalers. 'I will tell you something,' I said, 'if you want me to be like a father to you, then come with me; my Zodick is waiting with the carriage before the door, I will take you with me; it shall not cost you a shilling.' But he would'nt do it, he stayed there."

"The poor, unhappy man!" cried Habermann.

"This boy!" exclaimed Braesig, indignantly, "who has a wife and child! Oh, if you were mine, I would teach you a lesson!"

"But, Moses, Moses!" cried Habermann, "I beg you, by everything in the world, don't demand your money. He will come to his senses, and your money is safe."

"Habermann," said Moses, "you are a shrewd man, too, but listen to me: when I began the money business, I said to myself, when a man comes cutting a great swell, with carriage and horses, and costly furniture, then lend money, the man has something to pay it with; when one comes, gay and merry and drinking champagne,--now, young folks will be young folks! what they spend to-day, they can earn tomorrow,--then lend, too; but when one comes with cards in his pocket, and bills in his pocket, and throws his money by heaps into the gutter,--take care, I said, the gambler doesn't get his money again out of the gutter. And then, Habermann, what would the people say? The Jew, they would say, has laid in wait for the young man, he has advanced him money for his play, that he should ruin himself, and the Jew can find good fishing in the troubled waters." And Moses rose to his feet: "No, the Jew, also, has his honor! and no one shall come, and point to my grave, and say, 'They tell bad stories about him.' And I am not going to lose my good name, in my old age, for the sake of a young puppy like this. Has he not stolen your honest name from you? and yet you are a good man, and a sure man. No, sit down," said he, as Habermann sprang up, and strode up and down the room, "I am not going to talk about that; but people are different; you suffer it, and you have your reasons; I will not suffer it, and I also have my reasons. And now, adieu, Habermann, adieu, Herr Inspector,"--going out of the door,--"but I shall give him notice on St. Anthony's day."

So from this side also, a storm was rising in Axel's sky, of which he little dreamed; dark clouds gathered round him, and when the storm should burst, who could tell if a shower of hail might not fall, which should destroy all his springing hopes for ever. He, indeed, never allowed himself to think that he might be playing a losing game, he comforted himself with the good harvest, with the advances he should receive from the grain and wool dealers, and also with other unforeseen happy chances, which might possibly occur. But if such chances sometimes come to a man's help, unfortunate chances often come, which tax the courage of the strongest, and make him feel as if he were the plaything of destiny. And so it happened in the year 1848.

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Chapter XXXV

This is not the place, of course, to describe what the year brought with it, of good or evil, for the world, every one may do that, after his own fashion; nor shall I undertake to relate the consequences, or investigate the causes of its events in the rest of the world; but only to tell what it brought with it for the company with whom I have especially to do, is more than I can do off-hand; or my book would come to an end in a very unsatisfactory way.

When the uproar broke out in Paris, in February, it was as far off from Mecklenburg as Turkey itself, and was to most people rather amusing than otherwise; they were pleased to have something going on in the world. A great taste for politics was developed in Rahnstadt, and the postmaster said, if it went on like that, it would be too much for them, he had been obliged to order eleven new papers,--four Hamburg-Correspondents, and seven "Tanten-Vossen,"--and this proportion was itself a bad sign, for the "Tanten-Vossen" had a tendency to undermine all the conditions of society; they might not mean any harm by their nonsense, but they did it.

So four and forty Rahnstadt politicians were provided for, since at least four, on an average, read the same newspaper, and the juvenile offspring of the Rahnstadt grandees ran about the streets with the papers, and took them punctually from house to house, as if their worthy parents were training them for post-boys. But what were eleven papers, in such a town as Rahnstadt? The majority of the citizens had nothing of the sort, and some provision must be made for them, and so there was.

"Johann," said Hanne Bank's wife, "where are you going again?"

"Eh, Dolly, over to Grammelin's a little while."

"You go to the ale-house altogether too much, of late."

"Eh, Dolly, only one glass of beer! Rein, the advocate is going to read us the papers again this evening; a man must know what is going on in the world."

And Hanne Bank and fifty others went after their beer. The advocate Rein sat by the table, holding a newspaper in his hand; he looked along the table once or twice, and cleared his throat. "Quiet!" "Quiet!" "Grammelin, another glass of beer!" "Karl, hold your tongue! he is going to read." "Thunder and lightning! can't I be served with a glass of beer first?" "Well, now keep still!" and the advocate began to read. He read about Lyons and Milan and Munich; revolutions were breaking out everywhere, and spreading all over the world. "Come, here is something," said he. "'Island of Ferro, the 5th inst. The island is in great excitement; they intend taking away our meridian, which we have had over three hundred years, and transferring it to Greenwich, in England. Great animosity to the English. The people take up arms; our two regiments of hussars are ordered to the defence of the Meridian.'"

"Just think of that, how they are going on!" "Yes, neighbor, that is no small matter; when one has had a thing three hundred years, it must be hard to do without it." "Neighbor, do you know what a meridian is?" "Eh, what should it be? It must be something the English can make a good use of. You see, you wouldn't believe me, yesterday, that the English were at the bottom of the whole trouble, now you hear it for yourself."

Advocate Rein laid the paper on the table, and said, "The business is getting serious; one may well feel anxious and disturbed."

"Good heavens, what is the matter now?" "Has anything serious happened?"

"Serious? I should think so! Just listen! 'North pole, 27th February. An extremely dangerous and serious outbreak has occurred among the Esquimaux; they obstinately refuse to turn the earth's axis any longer, and they pretend there is a lack of train-oil, for greasing, since the whale-fisheries have been so bad, during the last year. The consequences of this disturbance, for the whole world, are not to be reckoned.'"

"Thunder and lightning! what is that? Will the whole concern stand still?"

"Eh, the government must do something about it!"

"Eh, neighbor, the nobility will not suffer that."

"I don't believe a word of it," said Hanne Bank.

"You don't believe it? Well, as a shoemaker, you should know something about it. Hasn't train-oil gone up since last year?"

"Well, children," said Wimmersdorf, the tailor, "so much I say, no good can come of it."

"Well," cried another, "it is all one to me! If the skies fall, the sparrows will drop dead. But so much I say, we have to work, and shall those lazy dogs at the north pole sit with their hands in their laps? Grammelin, another glass of beer!"

From these stories one may perceive three things; first, that the advocate, Rein, read not merely out of the papers, but occasionally out of his head, and that he was a waggish fellow, and, secondly, that the Rahnstadt burghers were not yet quite ripe for the newspapers, and, thirdly, that men, as a general thing, look at a matter very coolly, when it does not affect their own interests.

But it was coming nearer to us. One fine day, the Berlin post did not arrive, and the Rahnstadters stood in a great crowd before the post-office, asking themselves, what was the meaning of this? and the grooms who had come to fetch the post-bags for the country places, asked themselves whether they should wait or not; and the only contented man, in all this disturbance, was the Herr Postmaster, who stood before the door, with his hands folded on his stomach, twirling his thumbs, and saying, for thirty years he had not had such a quiet time, between eleven and twelve o'clock in the morning, as to-day. The next day, instead of the little newsboys, came the grandees themselves, and instead of the grooms the gentlemen themselves rode in, but that did not help the matter, for still the post did not come; but instead, it began to be whispered about that a revolution had broken out at Berlin. One knew this, and another that, and old Duesing, the potter, who lived by the gate, said he had heard cannon firing distinctly, all the morning, which all the people honestly believed, although Rahnstadt is twenty-four miles from Berlin. Only his neighbor, Hagen, the wheelwright, said, "Gossip, that cannon firing was done by me; I have been splitting beechen-logs all the morning in my wood-shed."

The third day a post came; but not from Berlin, only from Oranienburg; and they brought along a man, who could have told everything, since he was himself in Berlin at the time, if he had not talked himself so hoarse that by the time he reached Rahnstadt he could not speak a loud word. He was a clerical candidate belonging in the region, and the Rahnstadters knew him and nourished him with egg-nog to clear his throat; he drank a considerable quantity of the stuff, but it did no good; he pointed to his throat and chest, shook his head and was going away. But it was asking too much of the Rahnstadters to expect them to submit to such a disappointment, they wouldn't let him off, and the candidate was obliged to give a representation of the Berlin revolution, in pantomime. So he constructed a couple of barricades,--in the air, so to speak, for, if he had taken hold of the Rahnstadt paving stones literally, the police would have been after him,--he shot, with his cane, behind the barricades, he stormed them,--still with his cane,--from in front, he ran about wildly among the people to represent the dragoons, and succeeded in imitating the thunder of the cannon, for he was just able to say "Bumm!"

So the Rahnstadters knew, now, how a revolution looked, and how it should be conducted, and they sat together and drank beer and disputed, and things began to look so serious that even our friend Rein did not try to get off any more of his North pole stories. Sometimes, now, also, the grandees would come and drink beer, to earn popularity against the time when the revolution should begin here.

And it was seriously thought of. There were wide-awake people in Rahnstadt, as well as in other places, and although the citizens had no great common grievance, each had his little individual difficulty upon which to hang his discontent, one had this, another that, and Kurz had the stadtbullen. So it came about that all were united in the opinion that things must be different, and it would come to no good, if they did not have their revolution also,--that is to say, a little one.

Out of the indefinite reading of newspapers, came a definite Reformverein, with a president and a bell; and the irregular running up and down became regular, and the number of visitors became so large that the company adjourned, one evening, from the beer-house to the hall; but they took their beer-mugs along with them. All this happened in the greatest order, which is rather astonishing when one considers that the company was made up of discontented people, for the only contented member of the union was the landlord, Grammelin. They had speech-making in the hall, at first from the tables and benches; but that was to be altered. Thiel, the joiner, made a round sort of thing, which should serve for the speaker's stand, and the first speech made from it was by Dreiern, the cooper, against Thiel himself, since he considered the thing to be rather cooper's work than joiner's work, and begged of the assembly protection for his trade. He did not carry it through, however, although it was apparent to all that the thing bore a striking resemblance to a cooling-vat for a brandy-still. The old stout baker, Wredow, also failed in carrying his motion that the cask should be made larger, since there was no room to move about in it; for, as Wimmersdorf the tailor told him, the thing was not made for stout people; they had had enough of folks who cared merely for their own comfort. The thing was meant for those who had nothing on their ribs, and it was large enough for them. And so it happened that only the lean people got a chance to speak, and the stout folks in their anger and vexation stayed away, at which the others declared themselves to be well pleased. But it was a mistake, for in this way they expelled "the quiet element"--as it was called--from the union, and in their stead the day-laborers crowded in, and now they were ready for the revolution. The only two people of comfortable dimensions who still remained in the Reformverein, were Schultz the carpenter and Uncle Braesig.

No one could be more contented, in these restless times, than Uncle Braesig; he was always on the street; he was like a bee, or rather a humble-bee, and looked upon every house-door and every window in Rahnstadt as a flower whence he could suck news, and when his appetite was satisfied he flew back to his place, and fed his friend Karl with his bee-bread: "Karl, they have driven away Louis Philippe."

"Is that in the papers?"

"I read it myself. Karl, he must have been an old coward. How is it possible a king could let himself be driven away?"

"Eh, Braesig, such things have happened before. Don't you remember about the Swedish Gustavus? When a people are all united against him, a king stands entirely alone."

"You are fight there, Karl; but yet I wouldn't have run away. Thunder and lightning! I would sit on my throne and put the crown on my head, and kick and thrash with my arms and legs, if any one touched me."

He came later, saying, "Karl, the post has not come again from Berlin, to-day, and your young Herr rode in splashing through the streets, up to the post-office, to make inquiries himself, and why not? But it came near going badly with him, for some of the burghers were already plotting together there, and asking themselves, by way of example, whether they ought to allow a nobleman to go splashing through the mud like that. Well, he rode off, afterwards, in quite a different manner, towards Moses' house, and then the matter was dropped. I had a word to say to Moses, and went there shortly after, and as I came up he was just coming out of the door; he looked at me, but did not know me; not that I take it unkindly of him, for his head was full of his own affairs, for I could hear Moses saying, 'What I have said, I have said: I will lend no money to a gambler.' Moses is coming here, this afternoon."

So, in the afternoon, Moses came. "Habermann, it is correct, it is all correct about Berlin."

"What? has it broken out there?"

"It has broken out,--but don't say anything about it; this morning the son of Manasseh came to me from Berlin, travelling post; he is going to make a business of buying up old flint-locks, he has got some thirty thousand, left from the year '15."

"What can he do with his flint-locks?" cried Braesig; "every educated person uses percussion locks, now-a-days."

"What do I know?" said Moses. "I know a good deal, and I know nothing at all. He thinks, when it begins, there will be a demand for the old muskets with the flint-locks, too, and he told me at Berlin they shot with flint-locks and sabres and pistols and cannon on the people, and it went 'Puh! puh!' the whole night, and the cuirassiers rode through the streets, and the people threw stones, and shot out of windows, and from behind the barricades. Terrible! terrible! but don't say anything about it."

"So there was a regular cannonization?" inquired Braesig.

"Good heavens!" cried Habermann, "what times these are! what dreadful times!"

"Why, what do you call dreadful times? It is always bad times for the foolish, and always good for the wise. When we had good times, I had no reason for drawing in my money, and giving notice here and there. For an old man like me, these are good times."

"But, Moses, have you no anxiety, when everything seems going to destruction? You are well known to be a rich man."

"Well, I am not afraid; my Bluemchen came and whispered to me, and David came,--he trembled like that,--and said, 'Father, what shall we do with our money?' 'Do with it?' said I, 'do as we have done. Lend, where it is safe, do business where it is safe; we can be "people" too, if it is necessary. Let your beard grow, David,' I said, 'the times require it.' 'Well, and when other times come?' he asked me. 'Then you can cut it off again,' I said, 'the times will not require it then.'"

The talk then turned upon Axel, and his difficulties, and the fact that money and credit were nowhere to be had, and there was much to say on that point, for if credit fell property must fall with it, and many a one would not be able to keep his estate. And when Moses was gone the two old farmers sat together through the evening, with the Frau Pastorin, and the talk wandered sadly, hither and thither, and the Frau Pastorin clasped her hands, once and again. Over the wicked world, and, for the first time, thanked her Creator that her pastor had been taken away before these evil times, and had not lived to see such unchristian behavior; and Habermann felt like a man who has given up a fine business, which had grown very dear to him, and now sees his successor going to destruction. Braesig, however, did not allow himself to be dismayed; he held up his head, and said these agitations, which were spreading over the whole world, were not merely the result of human invention, our Lord had his hand in the business as much as ever; at least. He had allowed it, and after the storm the air would be clear again. "And, Karl," he added,--"I say nothing about you, Frau Pastorin,--but if I may advise you, Karl, you should come with me, tomorrow evening, to Grammelin's, for we are not mere rebels, and do you know how it seems to me? Just as it is in a stormy day; if you stand in the house and look out, you shudder and shrink, but once out in the midst of the rain, you scarcely notice it."

So Braesig attended the Reformverein at Rahnstadt, and every evening came back to the house, and told what had happened there. One evening, he came home later than usual: "They have gone crazy, today, Karl, and I have drank a couple of glasses more beer than usual, merely on account of the great importance of the matter. You see, the day-laborers have all become members of the union, and why not? we are all brothers. And the cursed fools have been planning that the whole limits of the town of Rahnstadt must be measured over again, and cut up into equal sections, and every one is to have just so much land, and every one is to have the right to cut down a beech-tree, from the town forest, for the winter; then there will be regular equality among men. Then all who owned land got up; they were for equality, but they wished to keep their property, and Kurz made a long speech about fields and meadows, and introduced the stadtbullen into them; and when he had finished they reviled him for an aristocrat, and turned him out. And then the tailor, Wimmersdorf, stepped up, and discoursed about the freedom of the trades, and the other tailors attacked him, and belabored him unmercifully, they wanted equality, they said, but they must have guilds for all that. And a young man got up, and asked, mockingly, how it should be with the tailoresses? Should they be admitted to the guilds, or not? And the old master tailors would have nothing of the kind, and then the young people declared themselves for the tailoresses, and turned out the old tailors, and there was a great uproar outside; and, in the hall, Rector Baldrian made a long, long speech, in which there was a great deal about the emanzipulation--or something else--of the female sex, and he made the proposition, that if the master tailors would not admit the tailoresses into their guild, the tailoresses should establish a guild of their own, for they were as good human sisters as any other guild; and that was passed, and the tailoresses are a guild now, and I was told, as I was going out, the tailoresses would be out to-morrow, in white dresses, with their forewomen at the head. Karl, that old, yellow old maid who goes by here every day, that they always call a Tartar, should lead them to the rector's house, and thank him, and in token of gratitude for his speech should present him with a woolen under-jacket and drawers, on a cushion."

"Braesig! Braesig!" exclaimed Habermann, "what nonsense you are talking! One would think you had nobody above you, and that you could decide everything for yourselves."

"Why not, Karl? Who is to hinder us? We make our resolutions, as well as we know how, and if nothing comes of it, why, nothing comes of it; and nothing ever will come of it, in my opinion, for you see, Karl, the whole story comes to one point; all will have something, and nobody will give up anything."

"So it is, to be sure, Zachary, and I do not think, in this little city, there will be much harm done, for one party will always oppose the other; but, just think, if the day-laborers, in the country, should get the idea of dividing the estates, what would become of us then?"

"Eh, Karl, but they won't do it!"

"Braesig, it lies deep in human nature, this desire to call a little bit of our earth one's own, and they are not the worst men who care the most for it. Look around you! When the mechanic has laid up something, then he buys himself a little garden, a little field, and has his pleasure as well as his profit in it, and the laboring man in the city may do the same, for he has the possibility; and for that reason, I do not believe the discontent of the laborers, here in the city, is of much consequence. But it is different with the laborers in the country; they have no property, and, with all their industry and frugality, can never acquire any. If these opinions should spread among them, and ignorant men should attempt to carry them into effect, you would see, the consequences would be bad. Yes," he cried, "at first, it would begin merely among the bad masters, but who will be security that it shall not extend to the good also?"

"Karl, you may be right, Karl, for this evening Kurz told me,--that is to say, before he was turned out,--that, last Sunday, a couple of Gurlitz laborers used very singular expressions at his counter."

"Do you see," said Habermann, and took up his candle to go to bed, "I wish no evil to any one, though many may have deserved it, but it is sad that the good masters should suffer with the bad, and that the punishment, which falls justly here and there, should fall upon the whole country."

With that he went off, and Braesig said to himself, "Truly! Karl may be right, in the country it might go badly, I must go immediately to look after young Jochen and Pastor Gottlieb. Well, there is no danger about young Jochen, he has never said a word to his laborers, and they will say nothing to him, and the pastor's Juern is decidedly no rebel."

Habermann's opinion of the people, with whom he had so long been connected, was just; through the whole country spread a restlessness, like a fever. The most well-founded complaints, and the most unreasonable and shameless demands went from mouth to mouth, among the people, and what was at first lightly whispered was soon loudly spoken out. The masters were mostly to blame for it, themselves; they had lost their heads, each one acted on his own hook, and selfishness became very evident, when each cared merely for his own interests, and, provided he could live in peace with his people, did not trouble himself about his neighbor. Instead of going forward, with a good conscience, in the old, friendly intercourse with the people, some masters cringed before their own laborers, and granted all their unreasonable demands; others mounted the high horse, and would compel them with sword and pistol, and I have known some who would not ride about their own fields without a couple of rifles in the wagon. And why? Because they had not a good conscience, and had long ceased to have any friendly feelings towards their people. Of course, this was not true of all masters, nor was it true of Axel; he had never been unkind to his people, nor was he generally hard, but he could become so, if he believed his position as master to be in danger. Under such circumstances as the present, every one showed his true character, and it required a very cool and experienced head to look over the whole tumult and trouble, hold oneself in readiness for action, and decide what was good and what was evil, and how one should steer his ship safely through these swelling waves.

This was not the case with Axel, he sat in the midst of the whole confusion, and groped blindly about him for resources which he should have found in himself, and so it happened, that he committed both follies of the masters, now he would yield unwisely, and again the lieutenant of cuirassiers would get the ascendancy, and he would seize his pistols and sabre. The people were not what they had been, and that was his own fault; for at one time he would deprive them of little things, which, from old custom, were dear to the heart of the small folk, and again, in a fit of good nature, he would give liberally all sorts of favors, and that made the people greedy, for he did not understand human nature, especially that of the small folk, in the country. He would praise the people when they had been idle, and scold them when they had been industrious, for he did not know how much they could bear. In short, he had not treated them in accordance with right and justice, but merely according to his own caprices, and because these had not lately been favorable, discontent had increased among the day-laborers, and against such solid old oaks as would not easily burn, or let the flame kindle, was piled one dry fir-branch after another, until, at last, they begin to take fire.

Every one knows that only diseased firs afford such dry branches, and in Axel's neighborhood stood such a diseased fir-tree, which was full of splinters, and that was Gurlitz. This tree had formerly been quite sound; but, in spite of all Pastor Behrens could do to preserve it, it had decayed, for each of the several masters, whom they had exchanged for another, had taken away branch after branch, and the old tar-barrel, Pomuchelskopp, was really glad that it was diseased, and thought merely of the fat he could roast out of it; for there are masters,--sad to say,--who prefer a bad state of things, among their day-laborers, to a sound one, and rejoice when they have their people at a disadvantage, because they can skin them the better. But Pomuchelskopp had not taken it into account that, when the lightning strikes such a dry tree, it will burn quicker and brighter than a sound one; and the neighbors of our Herr Proprietor, who knew very well that the Gurlitz people were in a bad way, and often jested about it, never thought that the fire which Pomuchelskopp--of course without meaning it--had kindled for his own destruction, might also happen to scorch themselves, and Gurlitz might be the bonfire, from which the whole region should be kindled. The Gurlitz laborers had taken to drinking brandy, because there was a distillery at the court, and they could have brandy on credit, through the week, to be deducted from their wages on pay-day, and they were in the habit of running to the city, to spend every shilling--spare or not,--at the shops in Rahnstadt, and here they had learned what was going on in the world, and the shopmen had also instructed them how it ought to go on in the world, and then they came home, and put their besotted ignorance together, and kindled it with their greedy wishes, till it rose up in blue flames, and their half-starved wives and children stood behind them, like ghosts, and they thrust in the splinters of the dry fir-tree,--that is, their poverty and distress,--and ran with them about the neighborhood, and so they had kindled even the honest, tough old oaks.

It did not blaze out openly, at first, there was much opposition to be overcome; there were well-meant words of intelligent people, there was the old dependence, there was the recollection of former benefits, there was the eternal justice, which holds out long, even in a diseased soul, and presses its sting into the conscience, and all this fell like cold rain on the glowing embers, and kept the fire from blazing out, even in Gurlitz. Had they been able to read the souls of their masters, however, it would have blazed up merrily, for in Pomuchelskopp's heart the common hatred and the most pitiable cowardice strove for the mastery, for his good conscience had long ago taken leave of him, and he could not rely upon his former kind treatment. At one moment he would cry cut in rage, "Oh, these wretches! I should only---- There must be new laws made! What have I to do with a government that has troops, and will not let them march? What! My property is in danger, my government must protect my property." And the next moment he would call his Gustaving in from the yard: "Gustaving, you blockhead, why are you running about among the threshers, let them thresh as they please, I will have no quarrel with my people," and he turned to his Haeuning, who sat there, stiff as a stake, her sharp nose and her sharp eyes turned steadily in one direction, and not even shaking her head, "Haeuning," he said, "I know what you think, you mean I should let them see that I am the master; but it won't do, it really won't do, Kluecking! we must be careful, we must be careful, with great caution we may possibly pull through."

Haeuning said nothing to this advice, but she looked as if, for her part, she had no intention of acting upon it, and Pomuchelskopp turned to Malchen and Salchen: "Children, I beg of you, not a word of what is spoken here! Not a word to the servants! and be friendly to the people, and beg your dear mama to be friendly also. Lord knows, I have always been for friendliness!"

And then Malchen and Salchen began upon Haeuning: "Mama, you have'nt heard, you don't know what is going on everywhere. Johann Jochen told in the kitchen how the laborers' wives have scourged the proprietor Z. of X. with nettles. Mama, we must give in to them; it won't do."

"You are all fools," said Haeuning, going out of the room. "Shall I be afraid of such a pack?" and she closed the door. But in this condition of supernatural, heroic courage, she stood quite alone, and without other help it was quite useless, for Muchel in his distress for the future, would neither stir nor move, and the remaining members of this simple family, for once, sided with their father.

"Children," cried the father, "every one must be treated kindly. The confounded wretches! Who would have thought of this, three months ago? Philipping and Nanting, you must not beat the village children any more, and don't draw an ass's head on the back of old Brinkman's coat again! These rascals! But they are set on by that cursed Rahnstadt Reformverein, and by the Jews and the shopkeepers; but wait a bit!"

"Yes, father," said Salchen, "and Ruhrdanz the weaver has already joined the Reformverein, and the rest of the villagers will all follow his example; and it may be a bad thing."

"Good heavens, I should think so! But wait, I must get the start of them, I will join it myself."

"You?" cried the two girls, in one breath, as if their father had proposed to sit fire to his house and home, with his own hands.

"I must, I must! It will make me popular among the burghers, so that they will not excite the canaille against me; I will pay up the tradesmen's bills, and--yes, it must be done,--I will advance something to my day-laborers."

Malchen and Salchen were astonished, never in their lives had they heard father talk like that; but they were still more astonished when father went on to say, "And let me tell you one thing, you must be very civil to the Herr Pastor and the Frau Pastorin,--good heavens, yes! Mother won't do it--Haeuning, what trouble you make me! The parsonage people can do us a great deal of good, or a great deal of harm. Ah, what can not a proprietor and a pastor accomplish, if they stand faithfully by each other, in these bad times! We must send them a friendly invitation; by and by, when it is quiet again, we can drop the intercourse, if it does not suit us."

And sure enough! After a few days Pastor Gottlieb received a note containing the compliments of the Herr and the Frau Pomuchelskopp--for old Haeuning had given in on this point--to the Herr Pastor and the Frau Pastorin, and requesting the honor of their company to dinner. The man waited for an answer. Braesig happened to be there, having come over to look after things a little. When Gottlieb read the invitation, he stood there, looking as if he had received a summons to the Ecclesiastical Consistory, to answer to charges of false doctrine, or immoral conduct. "What?" he exclaimed, "an invitation from our proprietor? Where is Lining? Lining!" he called, out at the door. Lining came, read the letter, and looked at Gottlieb, who stood before her without a word, then she looked at Braesig, who sat in the sofa-corner, grinning like a Whitsun ox. "Well," she said at last, "we cannot go, of course?"

"Dear wife," said Pastor Gottlieb,--he always called her "dear wife," when he wished to throw the weight of his clerical dignity into the balance, at other times he said merely "Lining,"--"dear wife, you should not refuse the hand that your brother offers."

"Gottlieb," said Lining, "this is not a hand, it is a dinner, and the brother is Pomuchelskopp. Am I not right, Uncle Braesig?" Braesig said nothing, he only grinned, he sat there like Moses' David, when he had staked a louis-d'or, and waited to see whether clerical dignity, or good, sound common sense would turn the scale.

"Dear wife," continued Gottlieb, "it is written, 'Let not the sun go down upon your wrath,' and 'If thy brother smite thee on one cheek,'----"

"Gottlieb, that does not apply to this affair; we have no wrath against him, and as for smiting on the cheek, I am of Braesig's opinion. God forgive me the sin! it may have been different in old times, but if it were the fashion now, there would be a great deal of grumbling in the world, for we should all go about with swollen cheeks."

"But, dear wife----"

"Gottlieb, you know I never interfere in your clerical affairs; but a dinner is a worldly affair, and one at the Pomuchelskopps is more than worldly. And then, you quite forget, we have company. Isn't Uncle Braesig here? And wouldn't you rather dine here to-day, with Uncle Braesig, on pea soup and pigs' ears than at Pomuchelskopp's grand dinner? And they have not invited Mining either," she added, as Mining entered the room, "and they know that Mining lives with us."

This decided Gottlieb, he liked pea soup and was particularly fond of pigs' ears; and I must say that he thought highly of Uncle Braesig, who had helped him so much and stood by him so faithfully, and one of his greatest clerical grievances was that such a man as Uncle Braesig, whose life was so honest and honorable, had yet so little the outward demeanour of a Christian and churchman. So he declined Pomuchelskopp's invitation, but when they had sat down to their pea soup, and Braesig came out recklessly with the information that he was really a member of the Rahnstadt Reformverein, Pastor Gottlieb sprang to his feet, regardless of the pigs'-ears, and delivered a regular sermon against the Reformverein. Lining pulled him by the coat, now and then, telling him that his soup would be cold; but Gottlieb was not to be diverted: "Yes," he cried, "the vengeance of God has come upon the world; but woe to the men whom he chooses as the instruments of his vengeance!"

Since they were not in church Braesig ventured to interrupt him, inquiring whom the Lord had chosen for the purpose.

"That is in the hand of the Lord!" cried Gottlieb. "He may choose me, he may choose Lining, he may choose you."

"He will not choose Lining and me," said Braesig, wiping his mouth, "Lining fed the poor, in the year '47, and I have, for several weeks, declared for equality and fraternity in the Reformverein; I am no avenger, I wouldn't harm any man; but if I could get hold of Zamel Pomuchelskopp, then----"

Gottlieb was too excited to listen longer, and went on with his discourse: "Oh, the devil is going about the world like a roaring lion, and every speaker's stand, in these cursed Reformvereins, is an altar, on which sacrifice is offered to him; but I will oppose to this altar another; in the House of God I will preach against this sacrificing to devils, against these Reformvereins, against those false gods and their altars!"

With that, he resumed his seat, and ate, hastily, a couple of spoonfuls of pea-soup. Braesig left him in quiet for a while; but when he saw that the young clergyman had come back to worldly affairs sufficiently to attack the pigs' ears, he said, "Herr Pastor, you are right in one point, the speaker's stand at Rahnstadt looks uncommonly like a devil's altar, that is to say, a cooling-vat from a distillery; but I can't say that sacrifices are offered to him upon it, unless Wimmersdorf the tailor does it, or Kurz, or your respected father, for he always makes the longest speeches,--no, don't interrupt me!--I was only going to say, so far as I am acquainted with the devil, and that is now a good many years, he would not meddle with the Rahnstadt Reformverein, for he is not so stupid."

"Gottlieb," said Lining, "you know I never interfere with your clerical affairs, but you would surely not bring such a worldly matter as the Reformverein into the pulpit?"

Yes, he would, Gottlieb said.

"Well, then, go ahead!" said Braesig, "but what people say, that of all men the pastors understand their business the best, is not true, for, instead of preaching in the people who don't go to church, you will preach out those who do go."

And Uncle Braesig proved to be in the right, for when Gottlieb, one Sunday, preached with terrible zeal against the new times--of which, by the way, he understood about as much as if he had come into the world yesterday,--and against the Reformverein, and, the next Sunday, was going on with the business, only Lining and Mining and the sexton were there to hear him, for a few old spinning women, who sat here and there, were not to be reckoned in the audience, since they did not come on account of the sermon, but only for the soup, which they got on Sunday noons at the parsonage. So he went home, with his sermon and his womenkind, the old women followed with their soup-kettles, the sexton locked up the church, and Gottlieb felt like a soldier, who in his zeal has thrust his sword into the thick buckler of his enemy, and stands there without defence.

So the times were bad, all over the country, every one's hand was against his neighbor, the world was turned round, those who had something and had been boasters were become humble, those who had been counted wise were now thought foolish, and fools grew into wise men over night; the distinguished were of no account, noble men gave up their nobility, and day-laborers were called "Herr."

But two things ran like a thread through all this confusion of cowardice and insolence, which had power to comfort and cheer. One thread was gay-colored, and when one came near enough, and could free himself from the common anxiety and the common greediness, he could find much amusement in it, that was the ludicrous side of human nature, which turned up so clearly; the other thread was rose-colored, and upon it hung everything with which one human being could make others happy, pity and compassion, sound common sense and reason, honest labor and self-denial, and this thread was love, pure human love, which is woven through the dull gray web of selfishness by helpful hands, as a token from God, that shall remain in the worst of times; and who knows but this stripe may grow broader and broader till the whole gray web turn rosy red, for this thread,--thank God!--is never cut off.

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Chapter XXXVI

Rexow was quiet. That means the day-laborers, Frau Nuessler and Rudolph; young Jochen and young Bauschan were not so well off. Young Bauschan had taken a stroll through the cow-shed, and had observed there, under the care of old Flasskopf, the cow-herd, a droll little beast, which seemed to him almost like a photograph of himself, and was also named Bauschan; he could remember, from his childish years, the circumstances under which he had succeeded Bauschan the sixth upon the Rexow throne, and he at last came upon the gloomy thought that this copy of himself, so carefully brought up on sweet milk, by Jochen Flasskopf, was in training for some high destiny, and might possibly, under the name of Bauschan the eighth, be his own successor; it would be in accordance with the times. He was greatly troubled, and could not decide what to do, whether, under the pretext that he could not accommodate himself to the times, and preferred to associate Bauschan the eighth with himself, under the title of co-regent, he should share with him the rule of Rexow; or whether he should treat him as a pretender, eat up his sweet milk, put fleas in his skin, and drive him out of the Rexow country, in short, declare war against him.

He kept watch of Jochen, to see what should be the upshot of the matter; but young Jochen, in these days, had enough to think about in his own affairs, he also was in the greatest agitation, and the times were so bad, that these two old friends were no longer united, but were agitated from wholly different causes; Bauschan looked upon a pretender to the crown as a great nuisance, Jochen positively wished for one; Bauschan looked with great disgust upon a private condition, with gnawed bones, which he could no longer bite; Jochen looked upon it as a golden cup, which Mining should fill for him with coffee in the morning, mother with strong beer at noon, and chocolate in the evening, and, when Braesig was there, with punch; he wished to be rid of the sovereignty, especially in such times as these, when one could not smoke his pipe in peace. He always read the "Rostock Times," but always threw it aside with vexation, saying to his wife, "Mother, they say nothing yet about the geese."

He imagined he was counted all over the country as a hard-hearted master, because, upon Rudolph's advice, he had exchanged the geese his day-laborers were accustomed to raise for a good piece of money, and he considered it the sacred obligation of the "Rostock Times," which he had read now for over forty years, to take his part on the goose question. And in my opinion, the "Rostock Times" might very well have done so, but they may have forgotten the matter, or possibly never heard of it at all. But he came near going distracted over it; if two girls stood together chattering about their cap-ribbons, he believed they were talking about the fact that no goose-eggs had been set in Rexow that year, and if two day-laborers, threshing oats on the barn-floor, talked about their wages, he thought they were grumbling, because they had no geese at harvest-time, to eat the oats. He could not accommodate himself to these new times, and new methods of farming, and was positively decided to rule no longer; Bauschan, on the contrary, was quite unwilling to abdicate, and so, between these two old friends, the egg was broken, and the bond was severed.

Frau Nuessler was, in spite of these wild times, very quiet, as I have said; but Jochen's condition made her anxious, and she often looked out for Braesig. "I cannot imagine," she said to Rudolph, "why Braesig does not come. He has nothing in the world to do, yet he does not look after me at all."

"Well, mother," said Rudolph, "you know what he is; if he has nothing to do, he makes something to do. However, he is coming to-morrow."

"How do you know that?"

"Well, mother," said Rudolph, hesitating a little, "I was over in our rye this morning, near the Gurlitz boundary, and I ran over to the parsonage a minute; he was there, and he will come to-morrow."

"Rudolph, you are not to go running over there so, I will not have it; when I go with you on Sundays, that is another thing. There you go chattering and chattering, and putting all sorts of nonsense about weddings and marriage into Mining's head, and nothing can come of it yet."

"Eh, mother, if we don't get married before long, we shall both be old and cold."

"Rudolph," said Frau Nuessler, as she left the room, "what is to become, then, of Jochen and me? We are still young, and able to work, shall we be laid on the shelf?"

"Well," said Rudolph to himself, when she had gone out, "you are not so very young, after all. These old people can give themselves no rest! The old man might be willing, but the old woman would work three young ones dead. Well, Braesig is coming to-morrow; I will have Braesig on my side."

And Braesig came. "Good morning! Sit still, Jochen! Well, have you had a little rebellion here, already?"

"Eh!" said Jochen, smoking furiously, "what shall I do about it, Bauschan?" for he must ask Bauschan, since Braesig was already out of the room, and calling after Frau Nuessler.

"Good gracious, Braesig!" said she, drying her hands on her apron, for she had washed them hastily, not wishing to offer him a pair of doughy hands, for she had just been kneading bread, "why do you never come near us, and in these dreadful times? How is my brother Karl?"

"'Bonus!' as the Herr Advocate Rein says, or 'bong' as the greyhound says, or he is doing well, as I say; only that he is always thinking of the destruction of his honest name, and the separation of his little Louise from Franz, and these inward wounds injure him, in every relation, so that he will have nothing to do with the Reformverein, and Parliament, and political matters."

"Thank God!" said Frau Nuessler, "I know my brother Karl well enough to be sure he would have nothing to do with such fool's play."

"Frau Nuessler," said Braesig, drawing himself up before his old sweetheart, "you have spoken a very serious word, as Rector Baldrian said, lately, when we were talking about the potato-land of the day-laborers; but one must look well to his words, in these days,--they have already turned Kurz out,--and I am really a member of the Reformverein at Rahnstadt, and have no pleasure in 'fool's play.'"

"Well, I believe you will turn me out of my own kitchen yet!" said Frau Nuessler, putting her hands on her sides.

"Did I say that?" asked Braesig. "They have turned out Ludwig Philippe, they have turned out the Bavarian Ludwig, they have turned out Ludwig Kurz; is your name Ludwig? No, I came here to look after you, and if anything breaks out here, then I will come with the Reformverein, and with the Burgher-guard,--we have all got pikes, and some of us flint-locks,--and we will protect you."

"Do you think I will have people coming into my house, with pikes and muskets?" cried Frau Nuessler. "You may tell your infamous pack, they must first provide themselves with an extra set of arms and legs, for those they have now would get broken here."

With that, she turned away, went into her buttery, and locked the door behind her. Yes, it was a sad time! even between this honest old pair, the devil had sowed his weeds, and when Braesig had stood a little while before the buttery door, as Bauschan often did, he felt very much like Bauschan when he was turned out, and he went back to the living-room with a downcast air, and said to Jochen, "Yes, these are truly bad times! And you sit there, and never stir hand nor foot? And the rebellion has broken out in your own house!"

"Yes, Braesig, I know," said Jochen. "That is on account of the geese; but what can I do about it? Braesig, help yourself to a little kuemmel!"--and he pointed with his foot to the lowest shelf in the cup-board,--"there is the bottle."

Braesig approved of a little kuemmel. Then he placed himself at the window, and looked out at the weather, and as the spring wind drove the April showers across the sky, and then the sun shone out again, so all sorts of dark stormy thoughts chased through his head: "How?" said he, "shall all that come to an end? She thrusts me away, when I would help her?" and then again the sun shone out, but with a brief and mocking glance, which gave no warmth, and he laughed: "Ha, ha! I wish I could see her fighting against the Rahnstadt Burgher-guard, with the tailor Wimmersdorf at the head, and the shrewd old dyer, with his 'Meins wegens;' how they would scatter!"

Rudolph passed through the yard, and seeing Braesig at the window, came in, as he wished to speak to him.

"Good day. Uncle Braesig!"

"Good day, Rudolph. Well, how goes it? I mean with the day-laborers. All quiet?"

"Oh, yes! Nobody has made any disturbance as yet."

"You shall see, about the geese," interposed young Jochen.

"Eh, father, never mind the geese!" said Rudolph.

"What is it about the confounded geese?" inquired Braesig.

"Oh, nothing," said Rudolph. "You see, last year, I got so provoked, first with keeping them in bounds, then with their plucking the grass in the meadow, and afterward they got into the grain, so I called all the laborers together, and promised every one four thalers, at harvest, if he would give up the goose business, and they accepted the offer, and now father has got it into his head that the people consider him a tyrant, and that a rebellion will break out, on account of the old geese."

"You shall see, Rudolph, the geese----"

"Good gracious!" cried Frau Nuessler, coming into the room, "always at the geese!" and, throwing herself into a chair, she put her apron to her face, and began to weep bitterly.

"Good heavens, mother, what is the matter?" exclaimed Rudolph, running up to her. "What has disturbed you so?"

"What shall I do about it?" asked Jochen, and he also stood up.

Braesig was going to say something, but restrained himself, for he knew better than the others what was going on in Frau Nuessler's heart; he turned to the window, elevated his eyebrows, and stared out stiffly at the April weather. Frau Nuessler sprang up, dried her eyes, pushed Rudolph and Jochen aside,--rather hastily,--went right up to Braesig, throw her arms about him, and said, "Braesig, I know you meant it all right; I won't break anybody's arms and legs."

"Oh, Frau Nuessler!" cried Braesig, and the April showers and sunshine were reflected in his eyes, for his whole face laughed, while his eyes were dropping tears, "Tailor Wimmersdorf and the old crafty dyer, 'Meins wegens,' may get their deserts from you, for all I care."

"What does this mean?" cried Rudolph.

"I will tell you," said Braesig, gently freeing himself from Frau Nuessler's arms, and taking her by the hand. "It means, that you have a real angel for a mother-in-law. Not one of the kind that you see at the balls, and promenading the streets of Rahnstadt. No! but an actual angel, out of the Old Testament, such a valiant, brave old angel, who is not afraid of the devil himself, contending in a good cause, and can put you, sir, in her pocket, three times over!" and he looked at Rudolph, as if he was the cause of all Frau Nuessler's distress.

"Good gracious!" exclaimed Rudolph, "I have done nothing!" and he looked at Jochen, and Jochen looked at Bauschan; but Bauschan did'nt know, and Jochen did'nt know, and Rudolph cried out, "I truly have not the least idea----"

"There is no necessity that you should," said Braesig, and turned abruptly to Jochen; "and you, young Jochen, with your confounded goose-business, you will bring your whole household into a dangerous revolution. You had better sit down, and keep quiet, and you, Rudolph, come with me, I will make a brief examination of your management, and see what you have learned with Hilgendorf."

That was a suitable employment for Jochen, and Rudolph obtained a fine opportunity to urge Uncle Braesig's assistance in his plans for a speedy marriage. It is possible that both of these reflections had occurred to Braesig.

In the afternoon, Fritz Triddelsitz came riding up the yard. This time, he was mounted on a dapple-gray, which had a most singular gait, in front, he stepped out like a man, and as a general thing, went on only three legs; from which one may perceive, that nature, in her intelligent way, often creates superfluities; for instance, the tail of a piuscher,[10] the ears of a mastiff, and the left hind-leg of a schreiber koppel. Fritz's dapple-gray was not handsome to look at, particularly when he was in motion; but he was a courteous beast, he bowed all along the street, and he harmonized with Fritz, for he had grown very courteous, with his nobleman, and when some of his comrades joked him about his dapple-gray, he laughed in his sleeve: "You blockheads! I have profited finely by my trading, with the chestnut mare for the black, the black for the brown, and the brown for the dapple-gray; I have made money every time by the bargain." The dapple-gray came very courteously up the Rexow yard, Fritz dismounted courteously, entered the house courteously, and courteously said, "Good day!"

"Mother," said young Jochen, "help Herr Triddelsitz,"--for they were just sitting down to coffee.

"God preserve us!" thought Braesig, "and is he called 'Herr' already?"

Fritz took off his overcoat, pulled something out of his pocket, and sat down to the table, laying down by his coffee-cup a pair of revolvers, which were just coming into use.

"Herr," cried Braesig, "are you possessed with a devil? What are you doing with those infernal shooting-machines among the coffee-cups?"

Frau Nuessler got up quietly, took the two pistols in one hand, and the tea-kettle in the other, poured hot water into the barrels, and said, very considerately:

"So! they won't go off, now!"

"For God's sake!" cried Fritz, "the only protection that we have----"

"Herr," interposed Braesig, "do you think you are in a den of robbers, here at young Jochen's?"

"The whole world is a den of robbers now," said Fritz, "the Herr von Rambow said that very distinctly yesterday, in his speech to the day-laborers; and therefore I have been obliged to go to Rahnstadt, and buy these two revolvers,--one is for him,--we will defend ourselves to the last drop of our blood."

Frau Nuessler looked at Braesig, and laughed a little bashfully; Braesig laughed heartily: "And with these things, and with a speech from Herr von Rambow, you expect to stop the mouths of the day-laborers, and turn them to other thoughts?"

"Yes, we mean to do it; my gracious Herr has spoken well to the people; he will govern them mildly, but firmly, they may rely upon that."

"Well, it is all as true as leather," interrupted Jochen.

"You are right, this time, Jochen; the tanning must be according to the leather, but the young nobleman is not the man, you shall see, to treat the timid with mildness, and the fainthearted with firmness."

"And he has made another speech?" asked young Jochen.

"A capital one!" cried Fritz. "How in the world he does it, I cannot imagine."

"That is of no consequence," said Braesig, "but what do the day-laborers say to their expectations?"

"That pack," said Fritz, who had learned something besides politeness from his master, "are not worth their salt, for, as I was crossing the yard afterwards, they were standing in groups together, and I heard them talking about 'flatterers,' and 'gee and haw management'----"

"They meant that for you," said Braesig, grinning.

"Yes, only think of it!" said Fritz innocently. "And in the afternoon; five of them came to the Herr, just the ones I had thought the most reasonable of all, and old Flegel, the wheelwright, was the spokesman, and said they had been informed that Herr Pomuchelskopp had given his people an advance, and had promised them more potato-land, and other things besides, but they would say nothing about that, for they had never been so badly off as the Gurlitz people, and they were contented with what they got: but they were not contented with the way they were treated, for they were blamed unjustly, and scolded when they did not deserve it, and they were driven back and forth, from the yard to the fields, so that they had no idea what they were to do, and it would be the best thing for the Herr von Rambow to let me go, for I did not understand how to manage the farm or superintend the people, I was too young. And if they might make a request, it was this, that they might have their old Inspector Habermann back again. Now, just think of it, such a set!"

"Hm!" said Braesig, grinning all over his face. "Well, what did the young Herr say?"

"Oh, he blew them a fine blast, and told them if he were contented with me,--and then he motioned toward me, whereupon I made a courteous bow,--then his masters the day-laborers might very well be contented also. You see, that old fellow, Johann Egel, stepped up,--you know him, he is one of the oldest, with the white hair,--and said they were not masters, no one knew that better than they, and in coming to him as their master, they had acted from good intentions, and not because they wished to use hard words. The Herr von Rambow was master, and he could do it or not, as he pleased."

"He is a devilish cunning old fellow," said Braesig, grinning more than ever.

"Yes, only think of it! But that was not all, by a long way; the butt end came afterwards. Towards evening, I noticed one after another of the day-laborers going to the riding-stables, and as I knew that Krischan Daesel, our groom, had a pique against me, I thought, 'What can be going on there?' and I went into the stables, and there is a hole between the riding-stable and the other stables, and I could hear Krischan Daesel exciting the others."

"That is to say," interrupted Braesig, "that you listened a little."

"Why, yes," replied Fritz.

"Very well," said Braesig, "go ahead!"

"Well, I must tell you, Krischan Daesel is positively bent upon marrying Fika Degel, and has been betrothed to her several years, and the Herr will not have a married groom, for he thinks a married groom would care more for his own children than he would for the colts, which is all right enough, but he will not dismiss him, either, because he thinks he does well for the beasts; though for my part, I don't agree with him. And now Krischan Daesel has got it into his head, that if he can break up the raising of thorough-breds, and do away with the paddocks, the Herr will let him marry Fika Degel, and so he was stirring up the day-laborers to demand the paddocks for potato-land."

"Well, you ran directly to the Herr, and told him that?" inquired Braesig.

"Of course," said Fritz, "he ought to know it beforehand, so as to be prepared for them. And when they came, and began about the paddocks and potato-land, and were of the opinion that their wives and children were just as good as the Herr's mares and foals, and ought to be cared for first, then he scolded them finely, and packed them off immediately. Krischan Daesel, of course, was paid up and sent off at once."

"Well, what does the gracious Frau say to all this?" asked Uncle Braesig.

"Eh," said Fritz, shrugging his shoulders, "what shall I say? she says nothing to it. I don't know what has come over her. She used to greet me,--rather ceremoniously but still politely,--but now she never looks at me, ever since that stupid book-business with Marie Moeller. She has been gone, this long time, and it is just as well, for she was an old goose; and now the gracious Frau attends to the housekeeping, herself, and, I must say, she is a good housekeeper, although she does'nt speak to me; and Korlin Kegel says she does it only to divert her mind from other thoughts, and she often sits down, and writes letters, but tears them all up, and sits with her hands in her lap, gazing at the little gracious Fraeulein. 'It is a pity,' says Korlin Kegel. 'But the housekeeping goes on all right, and without any scolding and storming round; no, so it shall be, and so it is done. If she only had a friend or a companion,' says Korlin Kegel,--well it is none of my business,--and he has no friends either."

"But it is some of my business," cried Frau Nuessler, springing up, "and I will go and see her to-morrow, and you, Jochen, may as well go also and see that poor, foolish young man, and advise him for his good; such times as these should bring neighbors together.

"Yes, mother," said Jochen, "what shall I do about it? And then this old goose-business here; but Gottlieb and Lining----"

"To be sure," cried Frau Nuessler, "he helped them to their living, and we must not forget it of him."

"Well, but he," said Braesig, looking like a sly old rascal, "has he no friends? What would the Herr Zamwell Pomuchelskopp say to that?"

"Pomuchelskopp?" said Fritz. "We have nothing more to do with him," bringing out the word with great contempt, and bending down to Braesig he whispered, "he has sued us, he has sent us notice for the money; I know it from Zodick, from Moses' Zodick. Yes, that pot is broken, and Slusuhr is coming constantly, now by letter, now in person; but we have got one on our side, too, the advocate Rein, do you know him?"

"Oh, yes," whispered Braesig, "I know him, with his North pole, and Island of Ferro."

"A confoundedly smart fellow, isn't he?" asked Fritz.

"Yes indeed," said Braesig, "he can lead people by the nose finely. But," he asked aloud, "what has the young Herr decided about the day-laborers?"

"I will tell you," said Fritz. "We have both decided to defend our lives to the last extremity, and he sent me to Rahnstadt, to get these revolvers."

"Well, and if the day-laborers come again?"

"Then we shall shoot," said Fritz.

"Right!" said Braesig, taking one of the revolvers in his hand, and playing with it, rather absently, "but Frau Nuessler, you have made it all wet, it might get rusty," and he wiped it on his coat-tails, and went to the window, as if to examine it more closely, while Fritz, meantime, explained to Jochen Nuessler the construction of the other.

"Jochen, where is your tool-chest," asked Braesig.

Jochen pointed, with his foot, to the lower part of the cupboard.

Fritz heard a sort of clattering behind him, and then a sharp noise, as if something hard was broken, and, as he looked round, Braesig held out to him his revolver, without any cock, for he held that in the pincers, in the other hand: "There!"

"Thunder and lightening!" cried Fritz springing up.

"So!" said Braesig, "now you can't shoot anybody with the thing."

"Herr, how did you dare to ruin my revolver?"

"Because you are a foolish boy, and children should not play with fire-arms."

"You are an old----"

"You want to say 'jackass?' And it is possible that I am, in meddling with you; but, Herr, I stand to you in the place of your aunt, and I have done this on her account."

"My Herr gave me orders to buy these revolvers, and I do as he tells me."

"That is all right, and here is one for your Herr; he can shoot with it, if he pleases, he is accustomed to the business,--but you----" and as the thought of Habermann came into his mind he added, "Infamous greyhound, have you not caused misery enough already?"

Frau Nuessler came to the rescue.

"Hush! Braesig, hush! Not a word of that! But you ought to be ashamed, Triddelsitz, to talk so lightly of shooting your fellow-creatures."

"What!" cried Jochen, springing to his feet. "Mother, is he going to shoot people dead?"

And Bauschan also sprang up, with a couple of emphatic barks, and Fritz was so confused by this combined attack on all sides, that he forgot his politeness, threw on his overcoat, thrust the mutilated revolver into his pocket, with the other, and only turned round at the door to remark, with great emphasis, that no ten horses should ever drag him over that threshold again.

"It will not be necessary," observed Braesig, very quietly. But if he had heard Fritz's figures of speech, as he rode bowing along the street, on old dapple-gray, and examined his ruined revolver, he would not have been so composed, for, compared with the titles of honor which Fritz generously bestowed upon him, those of the Emperor of Austria were of no account whatever.

Fortunately he did not hear, and on the whole he did not care much that Fritz had placed the Nuesslers' house under the ban; but he had made the discovery this morning that the oldest friendships might be broken in such times as these, and he registered a solemn vow never, under any circumstances, to retreat upon the Rexow farm, with the Rahnstadt Burgher-guard. His confounded whims often ran away with him; but his good heart kept close behind, and seized the reins directly; Strife and confusion were very far from his intentions, he really wanted nothing but joy and peace; although, by his peculiar conduct, strife and confusion were often produced.

Towards evening, when Jochen and Bauschan had fallen comfortably asleep in the twilight, and it was a fine opportunity for a few sensible words, he began about Rudolph and Mining: "Frau Nuessler, there is an old proverb, that says: 'He who loves long, his love grows old, and he who'----"

"Leave your stupid proverbs alone, Braesig, they are not suited to me, or to you! I know what you want to say, and I understand that this cannot go on much longer; but what is to become of him and of me?"

"Frau Nuessler, you mean young Jochen----"

"Hush, Braesig, name no names! You might, for all him,"--pointing to Jochen--"but on his account," and she pointed to Bauschan, "you must be very careful, for he is cleverer than all of us put together. Just see, how he pricks up his ears."

"Hm!" said Braesig, looking under Jochen's chair, "truly! but that need not hinder us. Frau Nuessler, this business must come to a happy ending."

"Yes, Braesig, I say so, myself, every day, but only tell me, what is to become of me, and of him?" pointing again to Jochen. "When Mining and Rudolph get the control, what shall I do, what shall he do?"

"Frau Nuessler, you will have quiet days, and enjoy yourself in your descendants."

"That may be, Braesig, and one gets accustomed to everything, even to idleness; but look at me, with all my housekeeping I grow stouter, every day, and if I should sit still in my chair I should soon be unable to move, and be a perfect monster."

"Frau Nuessler," said Uncle Braesig, standing before her, while the recollection of his youth came over him, "you were always handsome, and you always will be," and he made a bow, and grasped her hand.

"Braesig, that is a stupid joke!" said Frau Nuessler, drawing her hand away, "and just look at that old dog! Hasn't he sense enough to understand it? But we are not talking about me, now; what shall become of him? I can do all sorts of handiwork; but he, if he has nothing more to do?"

"He smokes tobacco, and sleeps," said Braesig.

"Yes," said she, "just at present, but he has altered fearfully, of late. I say nothing about the foolish old goose-business, for I can talk him out of that, but he has become so contrary, of late, he is always disputing, and since he has had nothing to occupy his mind, he imagines the most foolish things."

"Jochen?" asked Braesig, with much emphasis.

"Yes," said Frau Nuessler, "but it is all over now. Look!"

And Braesig, looking, saw Bauschan stand up, and whisk his rough tail across Jochen's face, a couple of times, and Jochen raised himself up, and asked, quite distinctly, "Mother, what o'clock is it?" Then he recollected himself, and perceiving Braesig, said, "Braesig, that is a clever fellow, that Herr von Rambow, he has been making a speech again."

Rudolph came in then, and candles were brought, and Braesig made a frightful grimace, across the table, at Rudolph; but it was not meant badly, it was merely confidential, and signified, "Keep perfectly quiet, rely wholly upon me, your business is going on well."

The evening passed slowly, for each had his own thoughts, and when it was bedtime Braesig was the only one who soon fell asleep; Rudolph was thinking of Mining and the wedding, Frau Nuessler of the dreadful times of idleness which awaited her, and Jochen of the geese, and Herr von Rambow's speech. This last thought kept him waking all night, and when Frau Nuessler, towards morning, turned over on the other side, for a little nap, she saw Jochen fully dressed, going out of the door, with Bauschan at his heels. That this meant something, she was sure, but what, no mortal could tell.

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Chapter XXXVII

Young Jochen went with Young Bauschan up and down the yard, and stopped frequently to rub his head, as if there were something he did not rightly understand. Bauschan also stood still, looked at Jochen, wagged his tail rather doubtfully, and sank back into his own gloomy thoughts about the co-regency. Rudolph came out.

"God bless you, father, are you up already?"

"Yes, Rudolph, it is because of the old geese,"--he had something more to say, but was not quite ready with it, and Rudolph said:

"Well, father, never mind the old story; but I am glad you are up so early this morning, you can tell the bailiff what the people are to do; I did not go over to the Pumpelhagen boundary yesterday, I will run over, and see how they are getting on with the ploughing. We are to do just as we did yesterday, manuring the potato-land."

"Yes, Rudolph, but----"

"Yes, father, you will find it all right; I must hurry, to get back in time," and he was off.

Jochen walked up and down again; the day-laborers, meanwhile, were coming into the yard, and the bailiff, Kalsow, came up to Jochen.

"Kalsow," said he, "let the people all come together here, in a heap," and with that he and Bauschan went into the house. The day-laborers, the housewives, and the farm-people all stood in a group before the house, and asked, "What are we to do?"

"I don't know," said Kalsow, the bailiff.

"Well, go in and ask him then!" Kalsow went in. Young Jochen was walking up and down the room, with Bauschan at his heels, for young Jochen had kept on his cap, and that was a token to Bauschan that his attendance was required.

"Herr," said Kalsow, "the people are all there."

"Good!" said Jochen.

"What shall we do?" asked Kalsow.

"Wait," said Jochen.

Kalsow went out, gave the people orders, and they waited. After a little while, he came in again.

"Herr, they are waiting."

"Good!" said Jochen. "Tell them to wait a little longer, I am going to make them a speech presently."

Kalsow went back, and said they must keep waiting, the Herr would make them a speech presently.

The people waited; but, as nothing came of it, Krischan the coachman said, "Kalsow, I know him, go in and remind him of it."

So Kalsow went in again; and said, "Well, Herr, how is it about the speech?"

"Thunder and lightning!" cried Jochen, "do you suppose thoughts grow on my shoulders?"

Bailiff Kalsow was frightened; he went back to the people, saying, "That was of no use, he was angry with me; we must wait."

"God bless me!" said Frau Nuessler to herself, in her store-room, where she was putting things in order, "what does it mean, that the people are all standing before the house?" and opening the window she called out, "what are you standing here for?"

"Eh, Frau, we are standing here waiting."

"What are you waiting for?"

"Eh, Frau, we don't know; the Herr is going to make us a speech."

"Who?" asked Frau Nuessler.

"The Herr," said Kalsow.

"What is he going to make?" asked Frau Nuessler.

"A speech," said Kalsow.

"He must be going crazy," exclaimed Fran Nuessler, dropping the window, and, running in to Jochen, she seized him by the arm, and shook him, as if to bring him to his senses.

"What do you want to do? Make a speech? What are you going to make a speech about? About me, or about Rudolph and Mining?"

"Mother," said Jochen,--but he said it firmly,--"about the geese."

"God have mercy on you," said Frau Nuessler, quite beside herself, "if you say another word to me about the geese!"

"What?" cried Jochen, setting himself up, far the first time in his life, against his wife. "Cannot I make a speech? They all make speeches, Herr von Rambow makes speeches, Pomuchelskopp, Braesig talks in the Reform-what? am I not good enough?"--and he brought down his fist on the table,--"wife, am I not master? And shall I not talk about my geese?"

Frau Nuessler turned quite pale, stood there stiffly, looking Jochen in the eye, but said not a word, pressed one hand against her heart, and felt with the other after the door-latch behind her, and when she found it opened the door, and went out backwards, still with her eyes fastened upon Jochen,--as a lion-tamer does, when he sees that the beast has lost its respect for him. But, when she was outside, she threw herself down on a bench in the hall, and began to cry and sob terribly. Yes, the year 1848 was a dreadful year, no government was secure; even in this, open revolt had broken out.

Braesig came down stairs, singing and whistling; but how suddenly he ceased, when he saw his old treasure in her grief!

"May you keep the nose on your face! What has happened? At this time of day, Frau Nuessler, half-past six, do you sit down and cry?" With that he threw himself on the bench beside her, and tried to pull away the apron from her face. Frau Nuessler pushed away his hands. "Frau Nuessler, I beg you, for God's sake, tell me what is the matter."

At last Frau Nuessler said, with a heavy sigh, "Jochen!"

"Good heavens!" cried Braesig, "he was perfectly well yesterday. Is he dead?"

"No indeed;" cried Frau Nuessler, taking away the apron, and turning her red eyes upon Braesig, "but he has gone crazy!"

"God forbid!" exclaimed Braesig, springing to his feet, "what has he been doing?"

"He is going to make a speech."

"What? Young Jochen make a speech? That is a bad sign!"

"Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!" lamented Frau Nuessler, "and the laborers are all standing out in the yard, and he has turned me out of the room, I don't know how I came here."

"This is going to extremes!" cried Braesig, "but compose yourself, Frau Nuessler, I am not afraid of him, I will venture to go in." And he entered the room.

Jochen was walking up and down, rubbing his head. Braesig sat down near the door, and followed him with his eyes, but did not speak; on the other side of the room sat Bauschan, who also followed his master with his eyes, but did not speak,--it was a very serious business, at least for Jochen and for Braesig; Bauschan was tolerably composed. At last, Braesig asked very gently:

"What is the matter, Jochen?"

"I don't know," said Jochen, "my head is so confused; my thoughts are running every way, as when one shakes up a bushel of oats."

"I believe you, Jochen, I believe you," said Braesig, and looked after him again, as he walked up and down. All at once Jochen stood still, and exclaimed angrily, "How the devil can I think of a speech, with both of you looking at me like that!"

"So! Do you want to make a speech? What do you want to make a speech for?"

"Braesig, am I any worse than other people? Are my laborers worse than other people's laborers? They want their satisfaction, in these hard times; but I am not exactly fitted for it, the business is too much for me; you are quicker-witted, do me a favor, and make one for me."

"Why not?" said Braesig, "if it is to do you a favor; but you mustn't disturb me!" and now Braesig walked up and down the room, and Jochen sat still, and looked at him.

Suddenly the Herr Inspector opened the window, and called: "All come up here!" The day-laborers came up.

"Fellow-citizens!" began Braesig; but--bang!--he shut down the window: "Thunder and lightning, that won't do! They are only day-laborers, one can't talk to them as if they were burghers! And now you see, Jochen, how difficult it is to make a speech, and will you meddle with a business, for which even I am not prepared?"

"Yes, Braesig, but----"

"Be still, Jochen, I know what you are going to say." He went to the window, opened it again, and said, "Children, each one go to his work, for to-day; there will be no speech to-day."

"Well, that is all the same to us," said Kalsow, "but the Herr---"

"He has been thinking about it," interrupted Braesig, "and he has decided that the spring is too early for it; by and by, at harvest, he will make you a fine one."

"Yes," said Kalsow, "that is the best way. Come then, people!" and they went to their labor.

But now, as the coast was clear, Braesig turned towards Jochen, and all the dignity, which his body was capable of expressing, was shown in his manner to Jochen, and all the influence he had exercised upon Jochen, in years past, now centered upon the poor kammerpaechter, as he said, "What? They call you crazy? You are no more crazy than Bauschan and I; but you are foolish. Why did your dear--I mean blessed--I mean cursed--parents bring you into the world? To make speeches, and frighten your dear wife out or her wits, who has nourished you at her bosom this five and twenty years, like a new-born child? Come with me, this moment, and beg her pardon, and tell her you will never do so again!"

And Jochen would have done so; but he was spared the apology, at least in the manner which Braesig demanded, for Frau Nuessler entered the room:

"Jochen, Jochen! How you distress me!"

"Eh, mother----"

"Jochen, you will be the death of me!"

"With your good-for-nothing speeches," interposed Braesig.

"Mother, I will not---"

"Ah, Jochen, I believe you will not do it this morning; but you have set yourself up, you shall see, it will happen again."

Jochen said no, he had had enough of it.

"God grant it!" said Frau Nuessler, "and that you may see that I can give up, too; for all me, Rudolph may be married to-morrow."

"So," said Braesig, "now there is peace in the house again! now everything is in order, now give each other a kiss! One more, Jochen, that the left side of your mouth need not come short."

This was done, and Uncle Braesig trotted off directly to Gurlitz, that he might inform his little goddaughter Mining of her happy prospects. He took the nearest foot-path, and that was the one which the Herr Proprietor Muchel had stopped up, that it might not be public any longer; but he had not succeeded in his design, for Gottlieb, at Braesig's suggestion, had opposed it, and had gained the suit.

As Braesig went along this path, he met the Herr Proprietor coming towards him, with a very friendly face in the distance, and as he came nearer he said, "Good-morning, my dear----" but he got no further, for Braesig turned upon him, and without looking him in the face said, "A certain person was going to have my boots pulled off, and let me hop about with bare legs, like a crow;" and with that, he passed on, without looking round.

And when he had discharged his errand to Mining, at Gurlitz, and, after great rejoicing with his little rogues, Lining begged him to spend the day with them, although he must excuse Gottlieb, since it was Saturday, and he must write his sermon, he said, "Frau Pastorin Lining, every one has his business, and if the Herr Pastor Gottlieb has a sermon to make, why shouldn't I have one, too? For I must go to the Reform this evening;" and so he went back to Rahnstadt.

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