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

The innkeeper, feeling obliged to cheer his guest up, told him all the remarkable, funny and sad occurrences of the little place, but Hans could only listen with half an ear; – they were gone, and finally he too could no longer endure the heavy atmosphere of the inn parlor. He felt that he must also get away, must breathe some fresh air. So he paid his bill and went, accompanied by the best wishes and blessings of the Post-horn. He strode through the sleepy place without looking to the right or to the left; not until he was out on the country road again did he look up and about him and almost wished for the wind of yesterday. Then there had at least been life, even though it had been weird; but today every bare furrow cried: the great Pan is dead! – and full of mourning the clouds hung low over the lifeless earth. It was fortunate for the wanderer that the way behind the next village led into an extensive forest of fir-trees. Even though it was still darker there than between the open fields, yet the fresh smell of the balsam strengthened him in mind and soul. In this wood Hans Unwirrsch at least left behind him his disquieting thoughts of the friend of his youth, for when he once more stepped forward out of the dusk of the forest the hills behind which his native town lay rose against the horizon and from now on everything had to recede before the vision of his sick mother, even the image of the lovely young lady who had sat opposite him the evening before.

Hans Unwirrsch wandered on without stopping; he would not allow himself another rest. An irresistible power within him drove him forward; by two o'clock in the afternoon he stood at the edge of the wood from which one can see Neustadt lying at one's feet.

"Oh Mother, Mother!" sighed Hans stretching out his hands toward the town. "I am coming, I am coming. I went forth with great hope and I am coming home in great pain and with many doubts. Oh dear, dear Mother, will you too forsake your child? You couldn't do that. Oh, why did I not stay down there, why did I let myself be lured away over this mountain and forest by a mistaken, false yearning! What am I bringing home that for you and me could take the place of that lost peace and happiness in which my father passed his days?"

And now the terrible thought came to him that his mother might be dying while he delayed there and he ran down the hill till he was out of breath and, while walking at a more moderate pace, he collected himself again.

Now he walked through the old gate and now through the streets of the town. From more than one window people looked after him, more than one acquaintance met and greeted him; but he could pay no attention to anyone. He was in Kröppel Street; he stood before the paternal house; he knelt beside his mother's bed and did not know whether a moment, a minute or a century had passed since that second when he stood at the edge of the woods. Nor could he give any account of what was said in the first few moments of his homecoming. Perhaps nothing was said at all.

Now he read his mother's frightful sufferings in her face and worn features, and wept bitterly. Then he whispered to her that he was there, that he would never go away again, and that she must not leave him either. And then, in a faint voice, the sick woman tried to soothe him and he felt a hand on his shoulder and finally raised himself up.

Auntie Schlotterbeck stood behind him; she had not changed at all and gently she reminded him that he must control himself and must not excite his mother too much.

There was Uncle Grünebaum too, very gentle and reticent; Uncle Grünebaum who knew that there is a time for everything and that everything must be regarded and treated and discussed in the proper manner.

Hans now shook hands with Auntie Schlotterbeck and Uncle Grünebaum and they both talked to him comfortingly and soothingly. He looked round him again in the low, dark, shabby room and in spite of all his grief and all his pain he felt a calm, an assurance which, during his torturing journey, he thought he had lost forever.

And now Uncle Grünebaum prepared to express his feelings in a well considered speech; but Auntie Schlotterbeck interfered after his preliminary clearing of the throat and half persuasively, half forcibly led him out of the door so that all he could do was to call back over his shoulder:

"Don't excite her, Hans. Be humane with her; behave like a filial son and composed mind, the doctor has given us strict orders."

As soon as the mother and son were alone the mother said:

"You must forgive me, Hans, that I had you called away from your work; but I had such a great yearning for you I could not help it. You have always been my comfort; you must be it now too. I longed for you so much."

"Oh Mother, dear Mother," cried Hans Unwirrsch, "don't talk as if my happiness and welfare were more important than yours. Oh, if you only knew how gladly I would give everything that I have gained by my work while away if I could only spare you the smallest part of your pain! But you will grow better, you will soon be well again. Oh Mother, you don't know how much I need you; no wisdom that can be taught on earth can give what a mother's word and look gives us."

"Just hear the boy," cried Frau Christine. "Does he want to make fun of the old washerwoman. Such a learned gentleman! But never mind, Hans. Hans, do you know that you are growing more and more like your sainted father! He behaved just like that if the sun went behind the clouds for a little while. He was a scholar too, even if he hadn't been to the university and I often had to wonder at the man. One day he would be as high in the air as a lark and the next day he would creep along the earth like a snail. You will mount up into the blue sky again, Hans, don't worry about me; I have nothing to reproach God with, he has meant well with me; he has given me a happy life and he cannot help the burden that he now lays upon me; that is everyone's lot and no one can escape it."

Hans felt much humiliated at the bedside of this poor, simple woman who had to endure such tortures and yet could speak and comfort so heroically. Even though his grief at the loss which threatened him grew more violent, his weak despondency of the last few days disappeared. He felt sure on his feet again, his true, real sorrow gave him back his inner self-control; in his profession he separated the real, the content from the non-essential, and for the first time really applied it to life. These difficult days had a deeper effect upon him than all the days he had spent in lecture rooms or in only half fruitful study. He now stepped out of the unwholesome spell of flattering, enervating imaginings, and dull, heavy broodings into real life; he did not lose his hunger for the ideal, the transcendental, but to it was now added hunger for the real, and the fusing of both, which took place in such solemn hours, could not but produce a good cast.

He arranged a table for his work at his dying mother's bedside. There he sat and wrote and, at the same time, watched the sick woman's slumber. The consistory had given him his examination themes; he began to work at them with an eagerness which he had believed was quite dead in him. It was a strange, sadly happy time.

What a light Master Anton's glass globe cast across the table and through the room in the evening and at night! Never before and never afterwards did it shed such a lustre.

Frau Christine saw her whole life in its glow as in a magic mirror. She saw herself as a child, as a young girl, and felt as one. Her parents and her parents' parents came and went; she saw them as clearly and as vividly as Auntie Schlotterbeck herself might have seen them. She thought of the games she played as a child and of all her girl friends, and the light of the globe was like moonlight, sunrise and sunset, or like high noon. The sick woman had forgotten so much and now suddenly it all came back to her and no part of it was lost, – it was really amazing. She often had to close her eyes because the figures and varied scenes of that distant time passed before her in too great abundance; – now for the first time she realized how much, how infinitely much she had experienced in her life after all. Her Anton had often complained that he had to sit so quiet and so surrounded by dusk and that he couldn't bear to think of all the people who journeyed over hill and dale and across the wide ocean and of those who discovered strange countries and of all the tumult and bustle that there was in the world; – Frau Christine thought of these complaints as she lay on her bed of pain, nodded and shook her head and smiled. Foolish Anton, had he not had enough turmoil and excitement in his life? Had there not been plenty of happenings in it? There was their wedding day, for instance, when Christine had danced for the last time as a girl and Anton had looked so stately in his wedding clothes. Had that not been a bright bit of life and a greater thing than to sail across the seas to outlandish places? And what had they not lived through in the time of the French wars, when Anna, to whom Brother Nik'las had nearly become engaged, had gone off with the Hussars? That had been in 1806 and it really seemed queer to think of how troubled Anton had been about the hard times and of how nobody thought of the French now any more than Brother Nik'las thought of Anna. There was Auntie Schlotterbeck who had lived through all these things and who could see the dead; but still she could not command all the memories that Frau Christine could, for she had never borne a child and had no son to grow up and sit at the table, a learned man, and send glances to her across his books. Oh, how much, how much one could think of by the light of the magic globe; it made it really easy, even when the pain was at its worst, to lie quiet and to wait patiently for the last hour!

We described at the beginning how Hans, as a little child, lay in his bed in the winter night and watched his mother get ready for her early work. We spoke of the strange, mysterious pictures his fancy drew of the places to which she went, of how he saw the shadows dancing on the walls and watched carefully to see what became of them when the lamp was blown out. Now, as a grown man, he was compelled to give way to very similar and yet quite different feelings. He had had some experiences and had learnt much; it would have been no wonder if he had entered into these hours with more mature moods; but just as his mother was surprised at the return of the memories of her youth, so too he had reason to wonder at the return of these feelings.

While he turned over the pages of his books by the light of the glass globe and from time to time looked over at the sick woman's bed he thought of how his mother was now again preparing to go away and leave him alone in the dark. Just as then he had often begged her with tears to stay, so he would have liked to beg her now. Often the great fear came over him which he had felt such long years before when the lamp had been blown out, his mother's step had died away and sleep did not immediately close his eyes. He heard the snow trickling down the window as he had heard it then; the night watchman called the hours, the moonlight glimmered through the frozen panes, the old furniture cracked and creaked as it used to, the nocturnal world stirred in ghostly fashion as then.

If his mother was sleeping in such moments he could escape from the fearful throng of feelings only by working on as hard as possible at the most difficult parts of his task and even this did not always bring relief. But if his mother was awake he only needed to lay down his pen and to take her faithful hand in his: then the comfort he received was the best there could be for him. If there was anything that later influenced his acts, his plans, his views and his whole life it was the soft words that were whispered to him in such hours.

"See, dear child," said the old woman, "in my poor mind it has always seemed to me that the world would not amount to much if there were no hunger in it. But it must not be only the hunger for food and drink and a comfortable life, no, I mean a very different thing from that. There was your father, he had the kind of hunger that I mean and it is from him that you have inherited it. Your father too was not always satisfied with himself and with the world; not that he was envious because others lived in more beautiful houses, or drove in carriages, or anything like that; no, he was only troubled because there were so many things which he did not understand and which he would have liked so much to learn about. That is a man's hunger, and if a man has it and at the same time does not entirely forget those whom he ought to love, then he is a real man, whether he gets on well or not – that makes no difference. But woman's hunger lies in another direction. First of all it is for love. A man's heart must bleed for light, but a woman's heart must bleed for love. It is in this that she must find her joy. Oh child, I have been much better off than your father, for I have been able to give much love, and much, much love has fallen to my share. He was so good to me as long as he lived, and then, I have had you, and now when I am going to follow my Anton you sit beside me and what he wanted to have you have got and I have helped you to get it; isn't that enough to make me very happy? You must not grieve so about your foolish mother or you will make my heart heavy and I know you don't want to do that, you never have done it."

The son buried his face in the sick woman's pillows; he could not speak, he could only repeat the word, Mother! sobbingly, but all the emotion that moved him was expressed in it.

During his stay in Neustadt at that time Hans Unwirrsch seldom left the house. He greeted all the neighbors in Auntie Schlotterbeck's room, but he himself paid few visits. Wherever he did appear, however, he was gladly received and Professor Fackler held him so fast that he had finally to tear himself away with force.

Oddly enough the Professor was now greatly interested in Dr. Moses Freudenstein and questioned poor, disturbed Hans most closely about him.

"So the Talmudistic hair-splitter has gone to Paris? I can tell you, Unwirrsch, that boy gave me more embarrassment while he was at school than I cared to show. We can talk about it now: his objections and conclusions, the way he played with questions and answers often drove the sweat of fear out on my forehead. Truly one could not say: Credat Judæus Apella, – that promising youth was not so credulous! With his appetite for all the good things of this world he'll make his way, there is no doubt about that, Unwirrsch. I can tell you, the greatest thing is the right kind of hunger; in monks' Latin – the gods of Latium protect us – we might say: Fames – famositas, Ha! Ha! Well, God bless you, Johannes, and give you strength to bear your sorrow at home. We have the greatest sympathy for you and if we can be useful to you in any way just come to me or to my wife. Eheu, after all, in spite of all good things, life is a vale of tears!"

To what this last sigh referred is not quite clear to us although it was so to Hans Unwirrsch, who firmly believed that it was occasioned by his mother's illness, and so, deeply touched, he took leave, for the time being, of the good professor.

During this time Uncle Grünebaum of course often found the opportunity to show himself in all his greatness. He came and went constantly and the house in Kröppel Street was not safe from him for a minute. Now he appeared in the door so suddenly that the sick woman started in her bed, now his dignified head darkened the window beside Hans' writing table so suddenly that the young man jumped up startled from his seat to gaze at the apparition. If it had not been for Auntie Schlotterbeck Uncle Grünebaum would have become a nuisance, but the thoughtful soul finally organized a regular watch service and more than one child in Kröppel Street received orders to give a warning sign when Master Grünebaum turned the corner. When the alarm sounded Auntie Schlotterbeck always went and stood at the door to intercept the uncle and send him home again by means of cunning, or sometimes to lead him into her own little room. And thither Hans was then ordered to receive his uncle's words of consolation and advice.

"So she is still no better? So sorry, it's too bad! But that's the way it goes in the world and if one man has to complain of his tobacco, the other has trouble with his pipe. We all have to come to this thing; but it has a curious way about it. Now, there sits Auntie Schlotterbeck, a worn-out, miserable person, nothing but bones in a leather sack and, if you won't take it amiss, my saying so, Mistress Schlotterbeck, for the last twenty years I have thought from day to day that you would go out like a tallow candle. But now, there lies my sister, who was a remarkably robust woman, near to death, and you, Auntie, you keep on glimmering as if it were a matter of course and after all, perhaps you'll outlive even me and see me running round in the streets as a spirit in a white shirt and with three pairs of old boots under each arm. I'm ready to believe anything of you now. Oh dear, dear, Hans, what is man? What does he not have to endure in his life? Such great hunger – "

"And such very great thirst," threw in Auntie Schlotterbeck.

"That too, Miss Schlotterbeck," continued Uncle Grünebaum with dignity, though not without showing some annoyance. "Such great hunger and – thirst, that no angel who has not tried it would believe. What does a man do when he has come to his years of discretion?"

"Sometimes he takes to drinking," grunted Auntie Schlotterbeck.

"He hungers and desires everything that hangs too high for him," snarled Uncle Grünebaum furiously. "Whoever asks too much deserves to get nothing; but whoever asks little certainly will get nothing at all. There was your father, boy; he had the most ludicrous kind of hunger and he asked too much as well; he wanted to be a cobbler and a scholar at the same time. What came of it? Nothing! Now, here is your dear Uncle Nik'las, who was gifted with too great modesty and asked nothing but his daily bread – "

"And the Red Ram and the political newspaper!" interposed Auntie Schlotterbeck again. "And as he liked to sit in the Red Ram better than on his work stool and as he liked better to whistle to his birds than to work and as he read the Post Courier in preference to the hymn-book, he comes here now and asks, what came of it and then actually wonders if the answer is again: nothing."

"Miss Schlotterbeck," replied Uncle Grünebaum, "you may impress some poor donkey that comes along, but can't impress me. I have enough of you for this time and I wish you good evening. It's enough to make me foreswear all Kröppel Street! Go to your mother, Hans, give her my love and my excuses that I could not see her this time, on account of excitement and inadequate self-control. I thank you, Auntie Schlotterbeck, for your pleasant entertainment and wish you, if it is possible, a clear conscience and a good night's rest!"

During this sad time Auntie Schlotterbeck surrounded Hans with even more love and solicitous attention than usual, if that were possible. The supernatural element that was mixed with her consolation could not disturb him. These apparitions of the dead of which she spoke as of something real, had nothing fearful about them, nothing confusing; – Hans Unwirrsch could sit for hours and listen to Auntie Schlotterbeck telling his sick mother about her visions and see his mother nod at the mention of some detail and remember something long past and forgotten.

Auntie Schlotterbeck saw good Master Anton very frequently at that time, and the sick woman's worst pains were alleviated when Auntie Schlotterbeck told her about him.

It was a very severe winter. Neither Auntie Schlotterbeck nor Frau Christine, both of whom had lived through so many winters, remembered one like it. When Hans, half against his will, went out for a walk to get a breath of fresh air, he felt as though everything that lay round him would remain forever so cold and dead, so bleak and bare, as if it were impossible that in a few weeks the trees would grow green again. More than once he mechanically broke off a twig, carefully to unroll the brown leaves of the bud and to assure himself that spring was really only asleep and not dead.

But the snow melted in good time and the waters triumphantly broke their fetters. Hans Unwirrsch completed his work and one evening laid down his pen, stepped softly to his mother's bed and, bending down to kiss her, whispered:

"Dear Mother, I hope that I have succeeded."

At that his mother drew her son's head down to her with both her sick hands and kissed him too. Then she pushed him gently away and folded her hands. She moved her lips but Hans could not understand everything that she said. He heard only the last words.

"We have managed to do it, Anton! Now I can come to you!"

At the beginning of the new spring the Sunday came on which Hans was to preach his examination sermon. It was a day on which the sun shone again.

A glass of snowdrops stood beside the sick woman's bed and the church bells had never sounded more solemn than on that day. The son, in his black gown, bent over his mother and she laid her hand on his young head and looked at him with smiling, shining eyes. Johannes Unwirrsch looked deep, deep into those eyes which said more than a hundred thousand words would have said; then he went and Auntie Schlotterbeck and his Uncle followed him. His mother wished it to be so, she wanted to be alone.

There she lay still, and had no more pain. In thought she followed her child through the streets, across the market-place, across the old churchyard to the low door of the sacristy. She heard the organ and closed her eyes. Once more only did she open them wonderingly and look at the glass globe over the table; it seemed to her as if it had suddenly given forth a clear tone and as if she had been awakened by the sound. She smiled and closed her eyes again, and then —

And then? No one can say what followed then; but when Hans Unwirrsch came home from the church his mother was dead and all who saw her said that she must have had a happy death.