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Chapter XXXIV

It was the sea and not the great city that roared beneath Hans Unwirrsch's windows next morning; but at first he would not believe it. Long before he awoke the sound of the sea penetrated his slumber and he dreamt curious things. All night long he had had to defend himself against the strange seething and roaring that rose in the distance and, swelling as it approached, threatened to suffocate him. All night long he fought against this mysterious something, this tumult of thousands and thousands of voices in which his own voice died away as feebly as the voice of a child crying for help in the midst of a wild tornado. It was like being set free when he finally awoke and could no longer doubt that he heard the sea and not the noise of the world through which the course of his life had led him.

After he fully realized that he was under the roof of the vicarage in Grunzenow and not in Grinse Street, or, indeed, in the house in Park Street, he lay for some time with half-closed eyes and gave himself up to the rapturous feeling of certain happiness and the sweetly melancholy thoughts and memories that are always so inseparably bound up with that feeling. The moment that shows a man what he has gained also teaches him to realize what he has lost most clearly. How many faithful hearts and warm hands we always miss in our happiest hours!

It was still quite dark when Hans awoke, only the snow brightened the night a little. Hans did not need to offer the shades of the dead a draught of blood to give them voices; he did not need to call them, they came voluntarily; – and he gave an account of himself to them on this Christmas morning.

A bent, lean man with a mild, earnestly cheerful face stood before his mental vision – Master Anton Unwirrsch, who had had such intense hunger for the light and who wanted to complete in his son his life, his wishes and hopes. "Oh Father," said Johannes, "I have traveled the path that you showed me and have labored hard to grasp the truth. I have erred much and despondency and faintheartedness have often taken hold of me – I have not been able to advance with steady steps. The world has been to me too great a wonder for me to be able to catch boldly and carelessly at its veils and coverings as others do; – it seemed to me too serious and solemn for me to be able to meet it with smiles as others do. Oh Father, any man that comes out of such a lowly house as ours cannot be blamed if he traverses the first part of his way with shyness and hesitation, if he is dazzled by trifles, if deceptive mirages confuse him, if a will o' the wisp leads him astray. Father, whoever comes out from under such a low roof as ours must have a strong heart in good and in evil so that, after the first few steps upward, he does not turn back and continue his dark life in the depths. Even the first knowledge and experience that he gains serve only to destroy the harmony of his being; they do not make him happy. In addition to all other doubts they awaken in him doubt of himself. Oh Father, Father, it is hard to be a true man and to give to everything its proper measure; but whoever is born in the depths with this yearning is more likely to attain it than those who awake to life halfway up the slope and to whom both height and depth remain equally unknown and indifferent. The liberators of mankind rise from the depths; and just as springs come from deep down in the earth to make the land fruitful so too the soil of humanity is eternally refreshed from the depths. Oh, Father, man has nothing better than this painful aspiration for the heights! Without it he remains forever of the earth, earthy; in this aspiration and by means of it he raises himself above all serfdom to the dust; in it he extends his hand to all heavenly powers, however little he may attain; in it he stands though it be on the tiniest spot of earth, in the narrowest circle, as the ruler of the most unlimited region, as the ruler of himself. Doubt too is gain in his life and pain is ennobling – often more ennobling than happiness, than joy. Father, I have gone my way in unrest; but I have found the truth, I have learnt to distinguish the sham from the genuine, the semblance from the reality. I no longer fear the things of the world; for love stands at my side; – Father, bless your son on his future way and ask for him that the hunger which has guided him till now may never leave him as long as he lives."

Hans talked to all his dead on that dark Christmas morning before the dawn came. They passed him in a long procession and he thanked each for whatever he had received from him on his life's way. It was no wonder that his mother, little Sophie, the charity school teacher Karl Silberlöffel, Auntie Schlotterbeck and Uncle Nikolaus Grünebaum should pass by and nod to him smiling; but it was almost a wonder how many other people came forth out of the darkness to claim their part in his growth and development. It was a wonder how many places had contributed to the forming of his mind, how far back lay the point of departure of every emotion of his soul. In those moments Hans realized for the first time how rich his life had been, what wealth he was taking with him out of the sunken world of his youth, out of the sunken world of Neustadt which Auntie Schlotterbeck and Uncle Grünebaum had taken with them into their graves, out of the sunken world of his "years of wandering" into his new life in Grunzenow on the Baltic. Ever new, ever changing scenes and figures rose up and passed by until at last the church bell of Grunzenow began to ring.

The bell of Grunzenow, his new home! The bell for the Christmas service! Hans Unwirrsch sat upright in bed and listened; – his heart beat loud and all his pulses throbbed! All his blood rushed to his heart and brain – Oh Fränzchen, Fränzchen!

All the feelings of his childhood had wakened in the man's breast. Before he went downstairs he knelt and hid his face in his hands for some minutes; he did not hear the door open behind him.

In his long, black clerical gown old Josias entered the room and softly set down the light he carried beside the candidate's lamp. He stood motionless as long as the little bell rang, as long as Johannes Unwirrsch knelt beside his bed. When the bell ceased and his young companion raised his head again he laid his hand on his shoulder and said with feeling as he bent down to him:

"It is a happy sign to be awakened by such ringing to new work, new cares, new life. My dear, dear son, be welcome in this poor and yet so rich, so narrow and yet so limitless field of endeavor. God give you strength and His blessing on this shore, among these cabins, under this roof. God keep you in your happiness and bless you in your sorrow!"

The bell was ringing a second time as Hans, at the aged pastor's side, mounted the steps which behind the pastor's house led up to the churchyard of the village. The way to the church lay directly through this churchyard and the two clergymen stopped among the white graves and black crosses, which all wore caps of snow, to look back on the village. The sea sounded in the darkness but in the village nearly every window was lighted and many people were moving on the road leading to the church. The fisherfolk came out of their cottages, up to their church – the aged, men, women, and children. They came with lanterns and lights and if the grown people, the elders, in passing by greeted their pastor with cordial veneration, almost every child came up to give him its hand; and he knew them all by name, knew the short little stories of their lives and had a special word of endearment for nearly every one. From time to time one of the grown people loitered on the way or turned sidewise to set down his lantern and bend over one of the snow-covered graves; then the pastor of Grunzenow stood at the mourners' side and spoke softly to them, and the stars smiled in the black winter sky and it seemed as if the sea softened its roaring.

The sexton of Grunzenow was pulling the bell-rope for the third time when again a larger group of people entered the churchyard gate and it was Grips who carried the lantern ahead of them. Colonel von Bullau led Fränzchen at the head of his following in knightly fashion and, when Hans Unwirrsch stood before him and Grips raised his lantern to light the meeting, he said:

"This is the way a man looks who cannot say how happy he is. Here, my young friend, here you have your maiden; I wish you joyful holidays and much pleasure."

Hand in hand Hans and Fränzchen along with the other people of Grunzenow, went into the little church, where the sexton was already sitting in front of the organ. As they walked the short distance Franziska could not tell her betrothed nor Hans his future bride how they felt; but each knew it, nevertheless. Yet Fränzchen brought him a heartfelt greeting from Uncle Rudolf who sat at home under the Christmas tree with his pipe and had his Christmas thoughts as well as everyone else.

There were certainly a hundred lights illuminating the little church; no one had put out his little lamp on entering and the gathering of this community on the shore of the sea was wonderfully solemn.

Candidate Unwirrsch with his betrothed and Colonel von Bullau sat down on one of the front benches close to the altar and pulpit and, joining in the gruff chorus of fishermen's voices, sang the old Christmas hymn through to the end; until, as the last tones of the organ and the singing died away, the Reverend Josias Tillenius went up into his pulpit to preach his Christmas sermon; until all the sunburnt, weather-beaten and wind-seared faces of the men, all the women's earnest faces and the children's eyes were raised to their faithful and venerable adviser and comforter. And not one of the famous and popular speakers whom Hans had heard in the great city, not one of the celebrated professors who had given him such good precepts at the university could have spoken more fittingly than did the aged vicar of the hunger parish of Grunzenow, to whom the library of his predecessors had remained a perplexing maze, and the modern science of theology a book with seven seals.

His greeting to his congregation was that of the angels than which there is no more beautiful one in the world: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." Then he wished them all happiness on that holy festival, the young and the old, the aged and the children; and he was right when he once said to Hans Unwirrsch that it was a strange thing for a pastor if his sermons had to echo the voices of the sea. He spoke of the good and the evil that had come to pass since that day had been celebrated a year before; he spoke of what might come before the bells rang for another Christmas. He had a word for those who were mourning and for those to whom joy had been given. Unlike his brother pastors farther inland who, like him, were now standing in their pulpits, he could not draw his similes from the work of the tiller of the soil; he could not speak of sowing and blossoming, reaping and fading; – it was the sea that sounded in his words.

He spoke of those members of his parish who were now in foreign parts, of whom it was not known whether they were alive or dead: the earth, from the north pole to the south pole, had to find a place in his sermon. He spoke of those from whom nothing had been heard for a long time, whose places by the fireside had been vacant for years, called two weeping mothers by name and comforted them with the promise that no one, no one, could be lost, however wide the world, as it was written that God held the sea in the hollow of his hand. He spoke of the great Christmas tree of eternity under which all the people on earth would be gathered in days to come.

Hans Unwirrsch thought of the sermons of hunger which he had tried to write in Grinse Street, by the publication of which he had hoped to make a name for himself and to touch and uplift thousands. Now he bowed his head before this old man's discourse which was certainly not ready for publication and yet penetrated to the inmost hearts of his auditors. Fränzchen, at his side, wept, from time to time; Colonel von Bullau cleared his throat very noticeably and mumbled something in his gray beard; the fisher folk sighed and sobbed; – Candidate Unwirrsch had no more time to go on thinking about his manuscript and Grinse Street.

Reverend Josias Tillenius had drawn near to the Christmas tree of every cottage in his village; now he suddenly stood in the shade of the tree of universal history through the branches of which the star of the annunciation shone down on the manger in Bethlehem. In a simple, impressive manner he told his congregation what things on earth were like when the angels brought down their greeting from heaven. He told about the city of Rome and the Roman Emperor Augustus, about the proud temples, the proud sages, warriors and poets. He spoke of how at that time the sun, moon and stars went on their way as blessedly as on the day when he was speaking, how the earth bore its fruits and the sea gave up its treasures. He told how human affairs were then ordered very much as now: how tribute was asked and given, how the lakes, rivers and sea were covered with the ships, how the country roads were full of wanderers and the marketplaces were full of merchants. He spoke of how then, even as in their own day, the wealth of the nations was carried back and forth, and then – then he spoke of the great hunger of the world.

The beautiful figures of the gods in the magnificent temples were false images that had no life. The priests who served them laughed at them and at the people who knelt before them, but the sages and the wise were ashamed of both gods and priests. The world had become a chaos without strength and stay. Man could not find peace either in his heart or in his house or out in the market-place. In the Roman Empire humanity had become lost in itself, it lay in chains beneath the purple mantle that covered its bruised and bleeding limbs; the sky was dark above it and the radiance of its golden diadem was but the livid light of the night of death. In spite of life's magnificence and commotion, the earth had come to be without form and void as before the creation. Pastor Josias Tillenius said this in words which his people understood. No one dared stir; only the quicker breathing of the listeners was heard and when Margarethe Jörenson, a great-grandmother of nearly a hundred years, the only person who slept in that assembly and who, according to a former order of the pastor's must not be awakened under any circumstances, let her big hymn-book slip from her lap and fall to the floor, a sudden shock passed through every heart and the hardened men of the sea started.

"Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will toward men!" It was as if these words broke the spell that lay upon the people of Grunzenow as they had once broken the fetters of all mankind.

The star of redemption stood above the stable in Bethlehem; the Saviour had been born into the world of hunger; the man of sorrows, the son of man, the son of God who was to take the sin of man upon him, had appeared, and the poor shepherds came running from the field, not to be followed till later by the kings and the wise men, to greet the child in the manger, this child which came just in time to be included in the census of the population of the Roman Empire which the Emperor Augustus had ordered. Now the time was fulfilled and the kingdom of God had come. Hungry mankind stretched out its hands for the "bread that comes from heaven and gives life to the world." The heaven above which had been so dark and drear opened above the children of the earth: all the nations saw the great light, – humanity tore the crown from its humiliated head and threw the purple mantle from its shoulders. It was no longer ashamed of its bleeding wounds, its bruised and fettered limbs, – it knelt and listened. "Truth!" was the jubilant cry from the rising of the sun, and from the going down thereof the joyful answer was "Freedom!" "Love!" sang the angels about the hut in which Mary, she of the house of David, and Joseph, the carpenter of Nazareth, showed the shepherds the child that had been born in the night. And now Pastor Josias Tillenius showed it to the children of the village; for the festival of Christmas is the true festival for the young to whom the sublime Easter Day can bear no message until the first great grief has touched their souls. And as the old preacher was thus speaking of Christmas to the children the new day dawned. Its first pale light was seen through the windows of the little church and the lanterns and wax candles grew dim before the rosy glow that suffused the winter sky. Again the organ pealed, the congregation of Grunzenow sang the final verse of the Christmas hymn, the service was over.

Hans and Fränzchen stood in the churchyard beside the preacher and the old Colonel and all the people of Grunzenow who passed them on the way down again into the village nodded to them or came up to shake hands and welcome them to their midst. The sky grew redder and redder, the lights of the village disappeared in the dawn as had the lights in the church. The organ ceased, the sexton too came, smiling shyly, to congratulate Candidate Unwirrsch. The day came but the voice of the sea did not die away.

The last inhabitants of the village had gone; Pastor Josias Tillenius looked at the betrothed couple and then said:

"Come, Colonel, you will have to lend me your arm as usual. The young people will be able to find their way alone, I am sure."

Colonel von Bullau looked at Hans and Fränzchen and drew his old friend's hand through his arm.

And now the pastor and Colonel von Bullau had left the churchyard like the rest of the people. Hans and his betrothed stood alone among the snow-covered graves. They stood and held each other in a close embrace. The same thought occurred to them both at the same moment, that the time would come when they, too, should lie there in the little churchyard and sleep; but they smiled and did not wish themselves away.

Labor and love! this was the thought that thrilled their hearts and they knew that they had been given both. The day came up clear from the east; the fog parted above the sea, – the sea sang of freedom, the sun sang of truth; and the world did not belong to Dr. Théophile Stein, who had once been Moses Freudenstein: Johannes and Franziska stood over the graves of the poor little village of Grunzenow and in their love they feared neither life nor death.

Chapter XXXV

Autumn!

 
To the loftiest heights
I wished to soar,
Each nethermost depth
I hoped to explore.
Things near and far
I craved to behold,
Each mystic secret
I fain would unfold.
A boundless roaming,
A hope unwaning
An endless seeking,
A never-attaining —
Such was my life.
 
 
But now, oh wonder!
It has been done,
A blissful dream
I now have won.
From a narrow circle,
Why should I depart?
I hold life's fullness
Confined in my heart.
Soft veils of azure
Sank down from above.
A magic circle
Of heavenly love
Now is my life.
 

These rhymes, together with disconnected sentences in prose, fragments of thought of all kinds, bits of Greek and Hebrew script and other scribbled notes, were all on one and the same page. And this page lay on the writing table of Assistant Pastor Unwirrsch, and Assistant Pastor Unwirrsch sat in front of it, rested his forehead in his hand and looked through the open window at the sea which glistened beneath the veiled sunlight and on which little white dots – the sails of the fishing boats of Grunzenow – glided back and forth.

Autumn!

On Christmas morning of the year before Hans and Fränzchen had gone down from the mist-covered churchyard into a quiet, happy time of labor and love. Under the loving touch of the young girl life had changed very much for the better in the Grunzenow mansion and soon the uncouth people of the village would have gone through fire and water for their young lady. The old gentlemen in the picture frames did not turn their darkened visages to the wall; a little more and Grips would now have declared that they were laughing just as if their ladies were not hanging beside them. Grips had fallen under Fränzchen's spell as had every inhabitant of the village and castle; the spell was cast upon him, as he said, and to his praise we must say that he endured this sorcery with grim cheerfulness and that he never lost more of his martial gravity than when he heard the young lady's voice in pleading or thanks, or when her little hand beckoned.

If the servants had thus succumbed to the magic influence it can easily be imagined how easy "the child" made the existence of the Colonel and her uncle. Once more Colonel von Bullau had "not thought it would be like that;" he was happy and only a little jealous of the lieutenant who was more than happy. It was touching to see and to feel how tenderly the two old soldiers treated the girl, how one tried to surpass the other in consideration and attention and how the "pet" had to protest to prevent them from carrying the whole Grunzenow mansion to another place on her account. The Colonel's head hummed and buzzed with the most wonderful plans and suggestions for making the neglected place into a Paradise; every night something occurred to him and every morning he came out with something which was not always as highly practical, pleasant and easily carried out as he imagined. Grips, the ingenious man and factotum, had never stood as high in his master's esteem as now. Every few minutes demands were made upon his talent for painting, cabinet making, gardening and the art of decoration; Colonel von Bullau himself developed a sense of color and painted the most impossible things with the gayest colors possible. Never before had his castle been so much his home; it made him forget not only the Polish Buck in Freudenstadt, but even the "slayers of nine" in their corner.

Lieutenant Rudolf's fur boots were carried up to the smoke house so that they might be protected from moths, the wheel chair was trundled into the storeroom, the gout took its departure and went to stay with people who were more worthy of its visit. The lieutenant marched about as briskly as a youth and enjoyed his Fränzchen and enjoyed his life; the cheerful present made it easy for him to forget all the trouble of the past. He had mourned for his brother and at the same time rejoiced in his release; of Kleophea he seldom spoke but when he did so it was never with hatred but with pity and gentle excuses. Only when the names of his sister-in-law and Théophile were mentioned did he fly into a rage and snort with wrath, anger and contempt; but the widow of the Privy Councillor Götz, née von Lichtenhahn, and Dr. Stein were not often spoken of in Grunzenow. The old gentleman's feelings and utterances in respect to his niece's fiancé were very changeable at first and it was not until the season of long days came that they became confirmed in equable good humor. If he was a little jealous of the Colonel he was very jealous indeed of poor Hans. The smiling god who had so splendidly followed suit when the sly old man had so subtly put his card into the game, certainly smiled once more at the psychic process through which Lieutenant Rudolf now passed. His unlimited amazement was followed by long-winded doubting astonishment at himself and the world; his wise recognition that what is done cannot be undone was followed by the usual philosophic attempts to see the matter in the right and best light possible. It was not until about the time of the vernal equinox that Uncle Rudolf reached the same point in his argumentations as Uncle Grünebaum in similar cases, namely that he did not hesitate boldly to maintain to himself and the world that he had brought Candidate Hans Unwirrsch from Kohlenau and introduced him into his brother's house for the very purpose that he might fall in love with Fränzchen and Fränzchen with him. While climbing in this way the ladder of victory over himself, his cheerfulness and contentment grew so much with the growing days of the young year that when the longest day came it would have been as impossible for them to increase further as it was for the days themselves.

Autumn! – In the verses which stand at the head of this chapter Hans has really said everything that he could say about his vita nuova on the shores of the Baltic; but even if he now no longer "departed from a narrow circle," still, it was not a narrow life. He had longed so much for real, thorough work; now he had his full share of it and did his duty as a true man should. After the most reverend chief consistory and the government had approved his appointment as assistant pastor, the aged Tillenius smilingly loaded a good part of his official burden upon Hans' back and the latter had never taken any load upon himself more readily. Although he came from inland the sea-faring folk were satisfied with his sermons and grew to love him. He baptized the first child, laid the first body in the earth and married the first couple and it was very seldom that Pastor Josias Tillenius had to tell him that neither he, himself, nor the people of Grunzenow had understood him, their Assistant Pastor.

He had never experienced such a spring and such a summer as in this first blessed year of his life in Grunzenow. All the glories of a dream did not equal the reality of those golden days of love and hope on the shore of the Baltic. He looked into life clearly and courageously; whatever indecision and instability nature and fate had laid in his character he sought to thrust away from him with a manly will. All he had to thank fortune for he sought to deserve and more than deserve by faithful endeavor and earnest striving. The indefinite hunger of his youth had now become the quiet, deliberate, steady endeavor that, active in millions, keeps mankind in its course and leads it on. Johannes Unwirrsch had learnt to know life, both its good and its evil side. Now all the circles through which he had wandered with all their figures, charming and terrible, had sunk into the past; he stood in the middle of a sphere which his activity was to fill. It was not indifferent to him that no tie bound him to his home town any longer, that he could bring nothing with him from Kröppel Street into his new life but sweet, melancholy remembrance and the shining glass globe which had formerly hung above his father's table. This glass globe now threw its brilliance on the life which Master Anton Unwirrsch had built up in his dreams of the true life on earth; but no generation extends far enough into the coming generations to see fulfilled its ideals which by that time are seldom the only ones.

Autumn!

The days of spring and of summer were past; but the autumn sun shone as lovely as ever and land and sea rejoiced in it. Nevertheless the Assistant Pastor at the open window had the right to disregard it in spite of all its glory; it was the seventh of September and on the next day, the eighth, a Sunday, his wedding was to take place. He had not made those rhymes in the moment in which he scribbled them down among the other fragments of thought.

Pastor Tillenius had chosen and fixed the wedding day; with art and diplomacy Pastor Tillenius had cajoled Uncle Rudolf and Colonel von Bullau into giving their consent and had held them to their promise when the two old gentlemen had wanted to take it back and not give up "their girl." Pastor Tillenius, backed by the apostolic principle: a bishop must be the husband of one wife – had held the field against the two obstinate, stubborn old soldiers. It was settled that Fränzchen was to leave the Grunzenow mansion and move to the vicarage; – Fränzchen herself had also given her consent and after all that was the most important thing.

Autumn! What was all the rapture of spring and summer compared with the bliss that autumn promised to give? It seemed as if all the birds of passage must stay to join in the celebration of the wedding and the honeymoon.

After the Grunzenow household had once resigned itself to the inevitable, it took infinite pleasure in the necessity and threw itself into the preparations for the festive day with an eagerness that surpassed everything. The Colonel was in a mild fever day and night, the lieutenant in a similar condition; but great indeed was Grips, the man for everything.

Who can find praise enough for the man's dexterous hand? Now it boxed the ears of a too stupid stable-boy; now, with deliberation, it drove in a nail on which to hang a self-twined garland. Grips had learnt something during his campaigns.

The village was stirring too. Old and young wanted to do their part toward making the eighth of September a day to be remembered in the annals of Grunzenow. For weeks beforehand the women and girls were busy, for weeks the sexton, who was teaching the children the wedding cantata, slept badly with inward excitement and too vivid dreams of success and glory, of failure, disgrace and shame.

Pastor Josias Tillenius composed his wedding address and as he gave to it the most beautiful although the saddest memories of his own life, and all of his good, full, old heart, it turned out admirably without being written down or learnt by heart.

On the seventh of September all the preparations were ended: meat and drink were not lacking in the Grunzenow house; the columns and pillars were festooned, the doors stood open to let the wedding joy in and the bride out.

 
"Soft veils of azure
Sank down from above.
A magic circle
Of heavenly love
Now is my life,"
 

these were the words that the bridegroom had written on the bescribbled page in his study in the vicarage. Everything was ready and Fränzchen softly laid her hand on Hans' shoulder, glanced smilingly at the paper in front of him and led him out of the house to her favorite spot on the seashore.