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

He was on his way to see one die whom he loved more than any other human being; he stepped out toward darkness and it was darkness that he left behind him. At one time he had preached to the trees and the birds because the world would hear nothing of his feelings, and he had never complained of that. Now, his hunger for knowledge seemed to be dead, but his feelings were still alive, rose insistently and crowded about his heart; they grew to be the bitterest pain that a man can endure. At that moment nothing was distinct in the surging tumult; sorrow about his mother, disappointment, worry and fear were mingled; and, curiously enough, mixed with all these there sounded sharply and cuttingly long forgotten words which Moses Freudenstein had once uttered. During this journey Hans Jakob Unwirrsch was in a similar mood to that of another John James who, long years before, had gone from Annecy to Vevay and had written of that road:

"Combien de fois, m'arrêtant pour pleurer à mon aise, assis sur une grosse pierre, je me suis amusé à voir tomber mes larmes dans l'eau!"

It blew incessantly! All day long the wind drove dark clouds across the gray sky, yet not a drop of rain fell. It burrowed into the hedges about the neglected, untidy gardens where the withered sunflowers and hollyhocks hung their heads plaintively. It rattled the windows of the village inn where Hans ate his dinner, blustered about the house and waited grimly for the wanderer who had escaped it for a short moment. It played its game about the coach that stopped at the toll-gate and flapped the cape of the driver's coat so violently round his ears that he could scarcely get out the toll. Hans threw an indifferent glance at this carriage through the window; but the next moment he regarded it more keenly. The leather flap at the side of the carriage had been drawn back, a young girl looked out and peered down the dreary country road. The wind raised the black veil on her black mourning hat and had no more pity on the pale, sad, girlish face beneath it than on anything else that came in its way. But for that reason the little face only made the greater impression on Hans. Trouble greeted trouble, and the sorrow that went on foot along the country road bowed to the sorrow in the carriage that rolled through the clouds of dust. That childish, careworn face just fitted into the mood that possessed Hans; he would have liked to know more of its owner's life and fate.

But the girl's head drew back and in its place there appeared a gray moustache and an old military cap. A glass of brandy was handed into the carriage, full, and very quickly appeared again, empty; the driver too had found it possible, in spite of his violent struggle with his cape, to refresh himself with a drink that did not come directly from the spring. Get up! Forward! The horses started and, with a cloud of dust the old vehicle rattled off, the wind rushing after it like a bloodhound on the trail and it was more than remarkable that when Hans came out of the Golden Stag Inn it received him too with triumphant animosity and blew him after the carriage.

The people in the Golden Stag had not been able to say who the military old gentleman and the young lady in mourning were; they only knew the driver, the two lean nags and the tumble-down old vehicle, and said that this quartet was often hired by travelers as it was frequently the only means of transport in the neighborhood.

In addition to all his other thoughts Hans now carried with him on his way through the dark afternoon the image of the lovely little face he had seen. Ever anew it presented itself to his mental vision; he could not help it. Thus he went on and did not stop till the dusk had grown denser and he had reached the little town in which he was to spend the night.

To be sure, it had been dusk all day and the evening could make little change in the illumination of the world. But now night fell and made common cause with the wind and if the devil had joined the alliance he could not have made matters much worse.

It was not the wind's fault that the crooked old houses of the little country town which Hans now entered were still standing the next morning. The lights in the rooms, behind the windows, seemed to flicker and the few people who were still in the streets fought their way laboriously against the storm, bending forward or leaning back. Front doors slammed with thundering crashes, window shutters flew open with a rattle and the only glazier in the place listened with singular joy to every shrill clinking and clatter in the distance.

If, however, the wind was obliged to leave the little town as a whole still standing it could do even less to the keeper of the Post-horn Inn. To have blown him from his feet and thrown him to the earth would indeed have been a feat which Aeolus might well have set his subjects and rewarded with a prize. On his short, well-rounded legs the innkeeper stood firm and unmoved in front of his doorway under his creaking sign and gave orders regarding a carriage which was just being drawn under shelter by two servants. The lean theologian, Hans Unwirrsch, landed, in the most literal sense of the word, on the colossal mountain of flesh, the keeper of the Post-horn Inn; half smothered and half blinded Hans was blown into the doorway and hurled violently against the innkeeper's stomach, but even this collision did not disturb the balance of his huge bulk.

The keeper of the Post-horn Inn was fortunately a man who knew how to appreciate the compelling power of circumstances; the attack did not make him as rude as might have been expected. He did not invite the guest thus hurled against him to go to the devil, he even wheeled halfway round to afford him an entrance into his house and followed him merely snorting a few mild remarks.

"A confounded way to steer! Always go slow over the bridge! Don't turn too sharp a corner! Thunder, right on my full stomach!"

But when, in the dimly lit room, he recognized the stranger that the ill wind had blown into his house, the last shade of bad humor disappeared from his round face and with perfect cheerfulness he held out his broad paw to shake hands.

"Ah, it's you, my young student friend! Back once more in the holidays? I'm glad of that! As they say, it's an ill wind that blows nobody good."

Hans apologized as well as he could for his tumultuous greeting at the door; but now the innkeeper only looked at him smilingly and pityingly and blew across his hand as if he would say: "A feather! A feather! Nothing but a feather!" – But what he did say was: "That's all right, Mr. Unwirrsch, I'm well able to stand my ground. Take off your knapsack; – I suppose you've carried it on your back all day long as usual? It's a shame!"

There was the landlady, just as corpulent as the master of the house! There was "my hostess' daughter fair" but not "in a coffin black and bare" this time, thank God! nay, very much alive and also of pleasant amplitude. And they greeted poor, sad Hans whose good heart and tiny purse they had learnt to know in former vacations and treated with the respect due them. They questioned him about everything before he could get his breath and knew the sorrowful circumstance that now called him home before he had laid down his knapsack and heavy stick. And as they considered a good meal and a good draught the best panacea for all ills he, the landlord, went down into the cellar and the landlady with her daughter went into the kitchen and Hans was now able to take a first glance at the other guests.

There were only two there. There was a table laid for supper in the corner by the stove and they were sitting at it; an old gentleman with a moustache, in a long military coat buttoned up under his chin, and a pale, delicate looking young girl in mourning. The girl was looking down and continued to do so but the old gentleman stared at the theologian so steadily and openly that the latter felt quite uncomfortable and was very glad when the fat landlord reappeared in the room and interposed his solid form between the keen-eyed, moustached countenance and the table at which Hans had seated himself.

The landlord had a robust voice and did not put his questions as softly as Hans would have wished; the landlord was somewhat deaf and required Hans to answer as loudly as possible. And when "my hostess" came with dishes and plates and "my hostess's daughter fair" with knives and forks, they too had questions to ask. The old soldier did not need to play eavesdropper to hear everything worth knowing about the black-coat.

If a man who has had much trouble to bear has not heard any friendly, sympathetic voices about him for a long time, he becomes communicative when finally such voices do reach his ears and his heart with questions and expressions of pity, however reticent he may be as a rule. And, as we know, Hans Unwirrsch was not reticent; he did not keep his joys and sorrows out of sight and, as he had nothing to conceal, he unreservedly gave the good-natured family a full account of how he and the world had got along with one another.

The military looking old gentleman soon knew everything that might be of interest in such a hungry-looking, black-gowned, young theological student. He knew his name, he knew that he came from the famous town of Neustadt, he had heard that a certain Uncle Grünebaum was still in good health and that a no less certain Auntie Schlotterbeck still saw the dead wandering about in the streets. That the theologian had an old mother in Neustadt and that this mother was ill with a serious, painful disease and would perhaps have to die – all this the old gentleman with the gray moustache heard, and the young girl heard it too, moreover with sympathy, as it seemed, for she had raised her head and turned it towards where the young man was sitting. Her face was kind, but not beautiful; it was her eyes that were beautiful, with which, however, she could not see the theologian but only the broad back of the landlord of the Post-horn Inn. The landlord blocked her view as well as that of the young man whom he was questioning so eagerly.

How angry the wind was outside, and how unmistakably it showed its fury! It blustered round the house as if mad and shook every window at which its ally, the night, the dreary autumn night, the enemy of man, the enemy of light, looked in. Oh, how angry the wind and the night were with the travelers who were now so safe from them; how angry with the fat landlord of the Post-horn Inn and with the landlady and the landlady's rosy daughter! No pursuer whose victims had escaped into some inviolable sanctuary could be more angry.

But who was it who at this moment emphatically snapped out the words: "That impudent Jew!"…

Was it the wind or was it the night?

No, it was the elderly military gentleman with the moustache and if there had been any doubt that by this kindly designation he meant our friend Moses Freudenstein, whose name Hans Unwirrsch had just mentioned, he dissipated such doubt immediately by adding:

"A conceited, impudent Jewish brat, if it's the rogue to whom, lately, in Paris, I had to give a piece of my mind! Wasn't it so, Fränzchen? Moses Freudenstein, yes, that was the name. Won't you move nearer, sir; come over here to this table; it's an evening for people to gather close together and I shall be glad to make your nearer acquaintance and to hear something further about this Moses."

The landlord and his family, wondering much at this sudden interruption, had turned to the speaker, and Hans, much excited by this unsuspected attack on his friend, had risen.

With no trace of timidity he began Moses Freudenstein's defense from where he sat; but the old gentleman waved his hand soothingly.

"Come, come; always keep step! Right, left! Right – now the wind has the floor again. Just listen to its blustering outside! This is the sort of weather that takes away even a pastor's appetite for a dispute. Come over here, candidate, and have a glass of punch; and don't take it amiss if I've done it again and said something unsuitable; – I suppose I have, for here's my niece pulling my coat-tail."

Perhaps at that moment it would have been quite agreeable to the young lady if the landlord had still stood between her and the theological student; but the view was now perfectly open and nothing prevented our Hans from thanking with a glance the blushing child who had pulled the coat of the owner of the gray military moustache.

"Forward, candidate, forward! Carry arms, – march – halt! Move up, Franziska; – you're surely not afraid of a young black-coat. Landlord, what would you think of calling out a second levy of this pleasant and wholesome beverage?"

The landlord thought that the beverage was just suited to the weather and the hour and lost no time in filling the order. Before Hans Unwirrsch really knew how it had happened he was sitting beside the old soldier, opposite the pale young lady and in front of a steaming glass.

"That's right, young man," said the owner of the moustache. "I knew that you wouldn't fall out with a pensioned old soldier on account of just a word or two. Your health, sir; and now as I have by this time learnt your name, circumstances and so on, you shall not feel your way in the dark as regards us, either. I am a retired lieutenant, Rudolf Götz, and this child is my niece, Franziska Götz, whose father has lately died in Paris and whom I have fetched from there, to turn her over to my third brother who is a juristic big-wig – poor little thing!"

The lieutenant growled the last words very softly and immediately added, very loudly.

"And now then, as we each know who the other is, I hope that the evening will pass without any row in the quarters. Here's to you, sir, you've made a good march today and a good drink ought to follow it."

Hans drank to the lieutenant in return and soon found that the voice and the moustache bore no relation to the eyes, the good-natured nose and the joyous mouth. He found that there was no reason to fear that theology had here fallen into the power and under the tyranny of a bragging swashbuckler. And, indeed, he thought, that it would require great inward perversity to be outwardly rough in the presence of the girl Franziska.

It was a pleasant picture to see the old soldier sitting between the two sorrowful young people. He was certainly very much inclined to be quite jolly; but as that was hardly the thing he did his best to play the part of the comforter.

"So it goes in the world," he said over the edge of his glass, "people drive or trot past each other on the road and never think of each other and then, a few hours later, all at once they are sitting comfortably together and stretching out their legs under the same table. And so it goes with us too; you're just standing in a solid square and have your men on either side, your best friends and can depend on them. You watch calmly how the two twelve-pounders over there are planted and the game begins. Phwt, phwt – the balls make bad paths through the battalion; but they don't touch you, nor the men beside you either. Over there, they're thinking, now their time has come – there is the cavalry – trot – gallop – you see them coming on with a stamping and roaring, like a thunder storm, – Fire! There is a cracking about your ears and your mind is so confused that you couldn't even say "Bless you" if the devil should sneeze. But you stand fast, however black it may grow before your eyes – now the real jamming sets in, and you stumble over all sorts of things that squirm or lie still. There's squealing and howling and groaning between your feet; but it's all one, you stand as fast as possible, even if you can't help it. The dogs must be driven back, and they are. Through the smoke you see nothing but the tails of the horses and everyone trying to get back where he came from and the wind blows the smoke after them – but, the devil, where are the men beside you? There are strange faces all round and it's a strange hand that holds out the bottle to you; there, comrade, drink after that piece of work! The battalion goes forward three paces to get the dead and wounded out of the ranks. All around the fellows are steaming with sweat and here and there one of them has blood trickling out of his nose or somewhere. The ground is slippery and ploughed-up enough and there's a most infernal smell in the air; but your good friends are gone and you mustn't even turn round to look after them for the scoundrels over there at the edge of the woods aren't done yet by a long shot; they'll come again often enough before the sun sets so as to earn their supper and stamp the name of Waterloo on the history of the world. And now here is my niece Franziska; she too has lost the man next her from her sight, and here is the pastor with a face like the black tom-cat that fell into the pot of vinegar, and here am I – also a poor orphan. I can tell you, young people, when a man has had it rain a few times into his camp kettle, he learns to put on the lid and when a man has lost more than one good comrade from his side he learns to say goodby. The softest hearts have learnt just to swallow dry three times in their misery and still they have remained the best and most faithful souls. Hold up your head, Fränzel; do it for your old uncle's sake; hold up your head, Hans Unwirrsch! If such young people as you rub their noses in the dust what are we old fellows to do?"

Franziska pressed the hard, hairy hand that the soldier held out to her tenderly to her breast; she looked at him and although tears glittered in her eyes she smiled and said:

"Oh, my dear, good Uncle; I will do everything that you want me to. I know that it is wrong of me to show such sadness in return for your love; you must be indulgent with me, – you have spoilt me very much with your love."

The old man took up the weak little hand which he held in his broad paw and looked at it attentively.

"Poor child, poor child," he murmured. "As forsaken and blown about as a little bird that has fallen out of the nest: – and Theodor and his wife – and Kleophea – Oh, it's a shame! Poor little bird, poor little bird, – and I, old vagabond that I am, haven't even the most wretched corner to give it shelter."

He shook his head for a long time, growling and sighing; then he brought his hand down on the table:

"Let's be merry, Pastor. So you know that Moses Freudenstein who now, with eight hundred thousand other loafers, infests the Paris streets? That's a fine acquaintance and really suits you about as well as a howitzer suits dried peas."

"I should be very sorry if Moses, if it is really he, should really deserve your displeasure so much, Mr. Götz," answered Hans. "We grew up together, we were friends at school and at the university; and moreover he can scarcely have been six months in Paris. I hope it is a mistake; I hope so with all my heart!"

The lieutenant now asked Hans to describe the personality of poor, good Moses exactly, and at every detail that Hans mentioned he was unfortunately obliged to nod and look interrogatively at his niece.

"It's he. It's as sure as a gun. That's the rascal, isn't it, Fränzchen? I'll tell you the tale in a few words, to put an end to the matter. As my brother's death took place very suddenly my niece was left all alone for some time in that nest of Satan and I know what that means because I was there on a visit in 1814 and '15, but there were a good many others with me. Poor child, poor child! I know what it means to be left all alone in that turmoil – She's pulling my coat again, Pastor! Now please leave me alone, Fränzel; let me tell him."

"I'd rather you didn't, Uncle," whispered the young girl, "and you looked at the matter in a worse light than it was; that gentleman – "

"Was a scoundrel who had to be ground into a pulp; – no, don't pull me, Fränzel."

Franziska threw a beseeching glance at Hans Unwirrsch and he had seldom felt so uncomfortable on any seat, besides he did not now learn after all in what relation his friend had stood to the young lady and the old soldier. Although the uncertainty troubled him much and the doubt of his friend that had been aroused in him pierced his heart, he would not have increased the pale girl's grief by eager, prying questions, for anything in the world. Only one thing was clear to him: chance must have led the winsome Moses into the house in which Franziska had lived after her father's death, helpless, lonely and unprotected, and that his behavior could not have been of the most chivalrous kind. On one of the boulevards a violent scene had then taken place between Mr. Götz and Mr. Freudenstein, and the former had certainly brought home with him to the German fatherland a deeply rooted antipathy to poor Moses.

Before the windows of the "Post-horn" another horn now sounded discordantly. The night-watchman called the tenth hour and the little party separated. The lieutenant took leave of the theologian in cordial fashion and admonished him once more to keep his head above water and to break his neck, if it must be, only in the best of health. Franziska Götz too, at his command, had to shake hands with the young man in parting and did so quite naturally and without embarrassment. The lieutenant and his niece had to leave early the next morning to reach the railway which now ran to the capital in the north. Hans Unwirrsch was able to sleep longer; no line of railway went as yet to Neustadt and, indeed, the town felt no need at all of being made accessible to the rest of the world in such a way. Hence if Hans resolved to bid the two travelers Godspeed once more at the carriage door in the morning, it certainly showed his good intentions and if he overslept, that was the fault of fate, which prevented his good intentions from being carried out.

He really did oversleep after having tossed about sleeplessly half the night. His long tramp and the wind, which rushed over the roof and whistled round the corners, Uncle Grünebaum's letter and Lieutenant Rudolf Götz's strong punch, Mr. Moses Freudenstein in Paris and pale, sad Franziska would not let him sleep. He got up and lit the light, only to blow it out again; he could not get his ideas into any sort of order and if usually his imagination came to his aid when he was in a depressed mood to comfort him with all kinds of bright and lovely pictures of the past or to hold up before him the magic mirror of the future with smiles and teasing beckonings, it now only drove ghostly shadows round his head and concealed in the most threatening manner both what lay near and what lay distant.

In all his life Hans Unwirrsch had never felt so lacking in courage as in that night; – until then he had been too happy. Now, for the first time dark, merciless hands reached into his life from all directions; the narrow, secure circle which a kind fate had drawn about his youth had now been broken through; he was being dragged out into the great struggle of the world, of which the young girl who was spending the night at the Post-horn under the same roof as he, knew so much more than he did.