The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 11

Chapter II

The ancients thought that it was to be considered a great piece of good fortune if the gods allowed a man to be born in a famous town. But as this good fortune has not fallen to the share of many famous men, such towns as Bethlehem, Eisleben, Stratford, Kamenz, Marbach, not having formerly been particularly brilliant spots in the minds of men, it probably makes little difference to Hans Unwirrsch that he first saw the light of the world in a little town called Neustadt. There are not a few towns and townlets of the same name, but they have not quarreled with one another for the honor of counting our hero among their citizens. Johannes Jakob Nikolaus Unwirrsch did not make his birthplace more famous in the world.

In the year 1819 the place had ten thousand inhabitants; today it has a hundred and fifty more. It lay and lies in a wide valley, surrounded by hills and mountains from which forests extend down to the town limits. In spite of its name it is no longer new; with difficulty it has maintained its existence through wild centuries, and now enjoys a quiet, sleepy old age. It has gradually given up the hope of ever attaining to bigger things and does not feel less comfortable on that account. However, in the little State to which it belongs it is after all a factor, and the government is considerate of it. The sound of its church-bells made a pleasant impression on the wayfarer, as he came out of the woods on the nearest height; and when the sun just happened to shine in the windows of the two churches and of the houses the same wayfarer seldom thought that all is not gold that glitters and that the sound of bells, fertile fields, green meadows and a pretty little town in the valley are far from being enough to produce an idyl. Amyntas, Palaemon, Daphnis, Doris and Chloe were often able to make life down in the valley very unpleasant for one another. But lads courted and lasses consented and, taken all in all, they went through life quite comfortably, to which the fact that the necessaries of life were not unattainably dear, probably contributed. The devil take dear old Gessner with all his rustic idyls when fruit and must don't turn out well and milk and honey are rare in Arcadia!

But we shall have occasion again here and there to drop a few words about all this, and if not it is of no consequence. For the present we must turn back to the young Arcadian Hans Unwirrsch and see in what way he makes himself at home in life.

The shoemaker's widow was truly an uneducated woman. She could scarcely read and write, her philosophic education had been entirely neglected, she cried easily and willingly. Born in darkness, she remained in darkness, nursed her child, stood him on his feet, taught him to walk; put him on his feet for life and taught him to walk firmly for the rest of his life. That deserves great credit and the most educated mother cannot do more for her child.

In a low dark room, into which little fresh air and still less sun penetrated, Hans awakened to consciousness, and in one respect this was good; later he was not too much afraid of the caverns in which far the greater part of humanity that participates in the blessings of civilization, must spend its life. Throughout his life he took light and air for what they are, articles of luxury which fortune gives or refuses and which she seems better pleased to refuse than to give.

The living room which looked out on the street and which had also been Master Anton's workshop was kept unchanged in its former condition. With anxious care his widow watched over it to see that none of her blessed husband's tools was moved from its place. Uncle Grünebaum had indeed wanted to buy all the superfluous stock in trade for a very fair price, but Mrs. Christine could not make up her mind to part with any of it. In all her leisure hours she sat in her usual place beside the low cobbler's table and in the evening, as we know, she could knit or sew or spell out the words in her large hymn-book only by the light of the glass-globe.

The poor woman was now obliged to toil miserably in order to provide an honest living for herself and her child; in the little bedroom, the windows of which looked out on the yard, she lay awake many a night, worrying, while Hans Unwirrsch in his father's big bedstead dreamt of the large slices of bread and butter and the rolls enjoyed by happier neighbors' children. Wise Master Grünebaum did what he could for his relatives; but his trade did not yield to him such blessings as one might expect from copy-book maxims; he was much too fond of making much too long speeches at the "Red Ram" and his customers preferred to trust him with the cure of a pair of sick shoes rather than to order a new pair from him. He had hard work to keep his own head above water; – but he was not backward with advice, which he gave willingly and in large quantities and we regret to have to add that, as is not seldom the case, the quantity usually did not stand at all in the proper relation to the quality. Auntie Schlotterbeck, although far from being as wise as Master Grünebaum, was more practical and it was on her advice that Mrs. Christine became a washerwoman, who rose in the morning between two and three o'clock and in the evening at eight, dead tired and aching all over, came home to satisfy the first, the physical, hunger of her child and to translate his dreams into reality.

Hans Unwirrsch retained dark, vague, curious memories of this period in his life and later told his nearest friends about them. From his earliest childhood he slept lightly and so he was often wakened by the glimmer of the sulphur match with which his mother lit her lamp in the cold dark winter night, in order to get ready for her early walk to work. He lay warm among his pillows and did not move until his mother bent over him to see whether the click-clack of her slippers had not wakened the little sleeper. Then he twined his arms about her neck and laughed, received a kiss and the admonition to go to sleep again quick, as it wouldn't be day for a long time yet. He followed this advice either at once, or not until later. In the latter case he watched the burning lamp, his mother and the shadows on the wall through half-closed eyelids.

Curiously enough nearly all these early memories were of winter time. There was a ring of vapor round the flame of the lamp and the breath was drawn in a cloud toward the light; the frozen window-panes shimmered, it was bitterly cold, and with the comfort of his warm safe bed there was mixed for the little watcher the dread of the bitter cold from which he had to hide his little nose under the cover.

He could not understand why his mother got up so early while it was so dark and cold and while such mad black shadows passed by on the wall, nodded, straightened themselves up and bent down. His ideas of the places where his mother went were still less clearly defined; according to the mood in which he happened to be he imagined these places to be more or less pleasant and with his imaginings were mixed all sorts of details out of fairy-tales and fragments of conversation that he had heard from grown people and which, in these vague moments between sleeping and waking, took on more and more variegated colors and mixed with one another.

At last his mother had finished dressing and bent once more over the child's bed. Once more he received a kiss, all kinds of good admonitions and tempting promises so that he should lie still, should not cry, should go to sleep again soon. To these were added the assurance that morning and Auntie Schlotterbeck would come soon; the lamp was blown out, the room sank back into the deepest darkness, the door squeaked, his mother's steps grew fainter; – sleep took possession of him again quickly and when he woke the second time Auntie Schlotterbeck was generally sitting by his bed and the fire was crackling in the stove in the next room.

Although she was not older than Mrs. Christine Unwirrsch, Auntie Schlotterbeck had always been Auntie Schlotterbeck. No one in Kröppel Street knew her by any other name and she was as well known in Kröppel Street as "Old Fritz," emperor "Napoleum" and old Blücher, although she bore no other resemblance to these three famous heroes than that she took snuff like the great Prussian king, and had an aquiline nose like the "Corsican ravager." As to any resemblance to Marshal "Forward!" that would indeed have been difficult to find.

Auntie Schlotterbeck had formerly also been a washerwoman but she had long since been mustered out and managed to make a wretched living by spinning, knitting stockings and similar work. The city magistrates had granted her a scanty sum as poor-relief, and Master Anton, whose very distant relative she was, had, out of kindness, let her have the little room which she occupied in his house, for a very low price. In reality she would deserve to have a whole chapter in this book devoted to her, for she had a gift which not everybody can claim; to her those who had died had not passed away from the earth, she saw them walking through the streets, she met them in the marketplaces looking like living persons and unexpectedly ran into them at the street corners. There was not the slightest tinge of uncanniness connected with this to her; she spoke of it as of something perfectly natural, usual, and there was absolutely no difference to her between the mayor Eckerlein who had died in the year 1769 and who passed her in front of the "Lion" pharmacy in his wig and red velvet coat, and his grandchild to whom in 1820 this same "Lion" pharmacy belonged and who was just looking out of the window without being able to take any notice of his august grandfather.

At last even Auntie Schlotterbeck's acquaintances ceased to regard her gift with any feeling of "creepiness." The incredulous ones stopped smiling at it and the credulous – of whom there were a good number – no longer blessed themselves and clapped their hands together over their heads. This high distinction had no detrimental influence on the character of the good little woman herself. Auntie Schlotterbeck took no undue pride in her strange gift of sight; she looked upon it as an undeserved favor from God and remained humbler than many other people who did not see nearly as much as the elderly spinster in Kröppel Street.

As regards appearance, Auntie Schlotterbeck was of medium height but she stooped very much when she walked and poked her head forward. Her clothes hung on her like things that were not in their right place, and her nose, as we have already heard, was very sharp and very hooked. This nose would have made a disagreeable impression if it had not been for her eyes. They made up for all the sins her nose committed. They were remarkable eyes and, as we know, saw remarkable things too. They remained clear and bright even when she was very, very old, – young, blue eyes in an old, old dried-up face. Hans Unwirrsch never forgot them although later he looked into eyes much more beautiful still.

In a naïve way Auntie Schlotterbeck was devoted to learning. She had tremendous respect for scholarship and especially for theological learning; little Hans owed her his first introduction to all those branches of learning which he later mastered more or less. She could have told fairy-tales to the Grimm brothers and when the wicked queen drove the golden needle into her hated stepdaughter's head Hans Unwirrsch felt the point way down to his diaphragm.

Hans and Auntie Schlotterbeck were inseparable companions during the first years of the boy's life. From early in the morning till late in the evening the seer of spirits had to fill his mother's place; nothing that concerned him was done without her advice and assistance; she satisfied his hunger for many things, but it was through her that he learnt to know hunger for many other things. Uncle Grünebaum growled often enough when he came to visit them; nothing good could come of such companionship with women, he said, the devil take them, one and all, odd and even; crochets, whimseys and spirit-imaginings were of no use to any man and only made him an addle-pate and a muddlehead. "It's nonsense! That's what I say and I'll stick to it."

In answer to such attacks Auntie Schlotterbeck merely shrugged her shoulders and Hans crept closer to her side. Growling, as he had come, Uncle Grünebaum departed; – he considered himself exceedingly practical and clear-headed and snorted contempt through his nose without stopping to think that even the best pipe stem may become clogged.

Hans Unwirrsch was a precocious child and learnt to speak almost before he learnt to walk; reading came as easily to him as playing. Auntie Schlotterbeck understood the difficult art well and only stumbled over words that were all too long or all too foreign. She liked to read aloud and with a whining pathos which made the greatest impression on the child. Her library was composed mainly of the Bible, hymn book and a long series of popular almanacs which followed one another without a break from the year 1790 and each of which contained a touching, a comic or a thrilling story besides a treasury of home and secret remedies and a fine selection of humorous anecdotes. For the lively imagination of a child an infinitely rich world was hidden in these old numbers, and spirits of all sorts rose out of them, smiled and laughed, grinned, threatened and led the young soul alternately through thrills of awe and ecstasies. When the rain pelted against the panes, when the sun shone into the room, when thunderstorms reached across the roofs with black arms of cloud and hurled their red flashes above the town, when the thunder rolled and the hail pattered and bounded on the street pavement, in some way all these things came to be connected with the figures and scenes in the almanacs and the heroes and heroines of the stories strode through good and bad weather, perfectly clear, plain and distinct, past dreamy little Hans who had laid his head in the old spirit-seer's lap. The story of "good little Jasper and pretty little Annie" struck a chord in his heart which continued to ring through Hans' whole life; but the "book of books," the Bible, made a still greater impression on the boy. The simple grandeur of the first chapters of Genesis cannot but overwhelm children as well as grown people, the poor in spirit as well as the millionaires of intellect. Infinitely credible are these stories of the beginnings of things and credible they remain even though every day it is more clearly proven that the world was not created in seven days. At Auntie Schlotterbeck's feet Hans lost himself with shuddering delight in the dark abyss of chaos: and the earth was without form and void; – till God divided the light from the darkness and the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. When sun, moon and stars began their dance and God let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, then he breathed freely again; and when the earth brought forth grass and herb and the tree yielding fruit, when the water, the air and the earth brought forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life and every winged fowl after his kind, then he clapped his little hands and felt that he stood on firm ground once more. The manner in which God breathed the breath of life into Adam was perfectly clear to him and of incontrovertible truth, whereas the first critical doubt arose in the child's mind when the woman was created out of the man's rib, for "that must hurt."

But following the simple stories of Paradise, of Cain and Abel, of the flood, came the numbering of the tribes with the long difficult names. These names were real bushes of thorns for reader and listener; they were pitfalls into which they pitched heels over head, they were stones over which they stumbled and fell on their noses. Ever again they untangled themselves, rose to their feet and toiled on with reverential solemnity: but the sons of Gomer are these: Ashkenez, Riphath and Togarmah; and the sons of Javan are: Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim and Dodanim.

But the days did not pass entirely in reading and telling stories. Just as soon as Hans Unwirrsch ceased throwing his hands about in half involuntary movements or stuffing them into his mouth, his mother and Auntie Schlotterbeck introduced him to the great principle of work. Auntie Schlotterbeck was an ingenious woman who earned a little extra money by dressing dolls for a large toy factory, an occupation which lay near enough to a child's sphere of interest and in which, before long, Hans gladly assisted. Ladies and gentlemen, peasant lads and lasses, shepherds and shepherdesses and many other merry little men and women of all classes and ages took form under the hands of Auntie Schlotterbeck, who worked bravely with glue and needle, pieces of bright-colored fabrics, gold and silver tinsel, and gave to each his share of these according to the price. It was a philosophic occupation and the worker might indulge in many thoughts while engaged in it; Hans Unwirrsch took to it kindly even though his childish joy in these toys naturally soon disappeared. He who grows up in a shop full of jumping-jacks cares little for the individual jumping-jack however motley may be his garb and however funnily he may jerk his arms and legs.

After Martinmas, which famous day could unfortunately not be celebrated by the consumption of a roast goose, manufacturing began as an independent undertaking. Auntie Schlotterbeck was now able to make the greatest profit out of her talent for plastic art; she built little men of raisins for the Christmas trade and others of prunes for more easily satisfied souls. The first prune-man that Hans completed without assistance gave him just as much pleasure as the disciple of art takes in the piece of work that wins for him a stipend with which to go to Italy. The opening of the Christmas-fair was a great event for the little modeler. Epic poets describe many feelings by explaining why they cannot describe them; Hans' feelings on this occasion were of that kind, and with rapture he carried the lantern ahead while, on a little cart, Auntie Schlotterbeck dragged her bench, her basket, her fire-pan and a little table to the fair.

The opening of the business, in an angle of the buildings that was sheltered from the keenest wind, was in itself a marvelous event. To crouch down under the big old umbrella, to fan the glowing coals in the fire-pan by blowing on them, to arrange the articles of trade on the table, the first quiet and yet expectant glance at the bustle of the fair – all these things had a heart-thrilling charm. The first prune-man that was bargained about, sold and bought, raised a genuine storm of ecstacy in the breast of Schlotterbeck & Company. Dinner, which a good-natured child from Kröppel Street brought in an earthenware pot, tasted entirely different out on the open market-place from what it did at home in the dark room; but best of all was the evening with its fog, its gleaming lights and lamps, and its redoubled crowding and pushing and shouting and bustling.

The child could not always sit quietly on the bench beside the old woman. Spellbound, in spite of cold, in spite of rain and snow, he went on expeditions over the whole market-place and, as a partner in the firm of Schlotterbeck & Company, he pushed his chin onto the table of every other firm, with self-assurance and critical attitude.

At eight o'clock his mother came and took the younger partner of the firm of Schlotterbeck home; but this was not done without opposition, crying and struggling, and only the assurance that "there would be another day tomorrow," could, at last, persuade the tiny merchant prince to leave the business to the care of Auntie till the hour of closing at eleven o'clock.

One thing that belongs to this period of our hero's life must be reported. With the money gained by the sale of a raisin-man that he had made himself, he bought – another raisin-man from a commercial house which had established itself at the opposite end of the market. This bore witness to a quality which was of great importance in the boy's future development. Hans Unwirrsch, who made these black fellows for others, wanted to know where the pleasure lay in buying such a fellow oneself. He wanted to get to the bottom of this pleasure and naturally found no joy in this much too early analysing. When the pennies had been swept into the drawer by the seller and the purchaser held the creature in his hand, the full measure of regret took possession of him. Crying loudly he stood in the middle of the street and finally threw his purchase far away from him and ran off as fast as he could, swallowing the bitterest tears as he went. Neither Auntie nor his mother ever found out where the groschen, for which one could have bought up the whole fair, had gone.

Winter brings many joys, but with it come also the greatest hardships. We have to do with very poor people and poor people usually don't begin to live again till spring and the may-beetles come. Hundreds of thousands, millions of people might well envy those happy creatures that sleep through the cold days in comfortable unconsciousness.

After Christmas Eve, which was kept as well as it could be, came New Year's Day and after that the Three Wise Men of the East approached. The shades of many of those who were dead passed Auntie Schlotterbeck in the streets at this time, or entered the church with her and walked round the altar. After Candlemas some people said that the days were growing longer but it wasn't very noticeable yet. By the time the Annunciation came, however, the fact could no longer be denied; the snowdrops had dared to come out, the snow could no longer keep the world buried, the buds swelled and burst open, Auntie Schlotterbeck's nose lost much of its redness; when Hans' mother got up early in the morning now the lamp no longer shone through a frosty circle of vapor. Hans Unwirrsch no longer yelled blue murder in front of the wash basin, and his feet did not now have to be forced into his shoes. The means of keeping warm was no longer carted into town by loutish wood-cutters and sold at a "wicked price." The days now arrived when the sun shone for nothing and did not even ask a word of thanks. Palm Sunday came before anyone realized it and Easter started the weaving of the wreath which the festival of joy, the verdant, blooming, jubilant Whitsuntide pressed on the young year's brow. Auntie Schlotterbeck now did her knitting on the bench in front of the door, and earnestly and shyly Hans Unwirrsch watched Freudenstein, the junk-dealer across the street, as he pushed his little Moses, a delicate, thin, miserable little piece of humanity, well packed up in cushions and covers, out into the sun on a wheelchair.

Summary of Chapters III, IV and V

[The boy, Hans Unwirrsch, was much admired and spoilt by his mother and Auntie Schlotterbeck and it was a good thing for him when he grew to be of school age. He was sent to the charity school. It stood in a dark, blind alley and was a damp, one-story building in which the teacher, Karl Silberlöffel, had to fight equally against gout and tuberculosis and against the rude boys and girls he taught. Hans was no better than his school-fellows. Just as at home he gradually sought to free himself from the absolute dominion of the women and began to criticize fairy tales and almanac stories, so too at school he joined his comrades with word and deed in all their mischievous enterprises against the helpless old master.

Here, however, Uncle Grünebaum's beneficial influence stepped in. Hans often visited his uncle in the latter's untidy workshop where he only did enough work to earn a scanty living for himself and his birds and to pay for the Post Courier which provided him with political reading. It was particularly interesting just at that time because the Greek struggle for independence against the Turks was raging and our cobbler, like Auntie Schlotterbeck, was an enthusiastic Philhellenist. He called Hans to account and tried to make it clear to him that he and his school-fellows would drive their consumptive master into his grave by their behavior and that it was no laughing matter to have a murder on one's conscience. He advised Hans to be careful that the devil did not take him, together with the other rogues, because of his conduct.

Such conversation had its effect. Hans did not take part in the next conspiracy, and did not regret the pummeling he received from the other boys on that account, for the next morning the teacher did not appear at school in consequence of a hemorrhage. Not long after he died. Uncle Grünebaum and Auntie Schlotterbeck were kind to him during his last illness, and Hans with Auntie Schlotterbeck stood beside the bed of the dying man. The exhausted man spoke of the bitterness of his life, but Auntie Schlotterbeck understood little and Hans nothing of what he said. He talked of how he had been hungry for love and thirsty for knowledge and of how everything else had been as nothing; of how he had lived in the shade and yet had been born for the light; of how shining, golden fruit had fallen all around him, while his hands were bound. Nothing had fallen to his share but his yearning, and that too was coming to an end. He would be satisfied – in death.