Part 67 (1/2)
He read about Lyons and Milan and Munich; revolutions were breaking out everywhere, and spreading all over the world. ”Come, here is something,” said he. ”'Island of Ferro, the 5th inst. The island is in great excitement; they intend taking away our meridian, which we have had over three hundred years, and transferring it to Greenwich, in England. Great animosity to the English. The people take up arms; our two regiments of hussars are ordered to the defence of the Meridian.'”
”Just think of that, how they are going on!” ”Yes, neighbor, that is no small matter; when one has had a thing three hundred years, it must be hard to do without it.” ”Neighbor, do you know what a meridian is?”
”Eh, what should it be? It must be something the English can make a good use of. You see, you wouldn't believe me, yesterday, that the English were at the bottom of the whole trouble, now you hear it for yourself.”
Advocate Rein laid the paper on the table, and said, ”The business is getting serious; one may well feel anxious and disturbed.”
”Good heavens, what is the matter now?” ”Has anything serious happened?”
”Serious? I should think so! Just listen! 'North pole, 27th February.
An extremely dangerous and serious outbreak has occurred among the Esquimaux; they obstinately refuse to turn the earth's axis any longer, and they pretend there is a lack of train-oil, for greasing, since the whale-fisheries have been so bad, during the last year. The consequences of this disturbance, for the whole world, are not to be reckoned.'”
”Thunder and lightning! what is that? Will the whole concern stand still?”
”Eh, the government must do something about it!”
”Eh, neighbor, the n.o.bility will not suffer that.”
”I don't believe a word of it,” said Hanne Bank.
”You don't believe it? Well, as a shoemaker, you should know something about it. Hasn't train-oil gone up since last year?”
”Well, children,” said Wimmersdorf, the tailor, ”so much I say, no good can come of it.”
”Well,” cried another, ”it is all one to me! If the skies fall, the sparrows will drop dead. But so much I say, _we_ have to work, and shall those lazy dogs at the north pole sit with their hands in their laps? Grammelin, another gla.s.s of beer!”
From these stories one may perceive three things; first, that the advocate, Rein, read not merely out of the papers, but occasionally out of his head, and that he was a waggish fellow, and, secondly, that the Rahnstadt burghers were not yet quite ripe for the newspapers, and, thirdly, that men, as a general thing, look at a matter very coolly, when it does not affect their own interests.
But it was coming nearer to us. One fine day, the Berlin post did not arrive, and the Rahnstadters stood in a great crowd before the post-office, asking themselves, what was the meaning of this? and the grooms who had come to fetch the post-bags for the country places, asked themselves whether they should wait or not; and the only contented man, in all this disturbance, was the Herr Postmaster, who stood before the door, with his hands folded on his stomach, twirling his thumbs, and saying, for thirty years he had not had such a quiet time, between eleven and twelve o'clock in the morning, as to-day. The next day, instead of the little newsboys, came the grandees themselves, and instead of the grooms the gentlemen themselves rode in, but that did not help the matter, for still the post did not come; but instead, it began to be whispered about that a revolution had broken out at Berlin. One knew this, and another that, and old Dusing, the potter, who lived by the gate, said he had heard cannon firing distinctly, all the morning, which all the people honestly believed, although Rahnstadt is twenty-four miles from Berlin. Only his neighbor, Hagen, the wheelwright, said, ”Gossip, that cannon firing was done by me; I have been splitting beechen-logs all the morning in my wood-shed.”
The third day a post came; but not from Berlin, only from Oranienburg; and they brought along a man, who could have told everything, since he was himself in Berlin at the time, if he had not talked himself so hoa.r.s.e that by the time he reached Rahnstadt he could not speak a loud word. He was a clerical candidate belonging in the region, and the Rahnstadters knew him and nourished him with egg-nog to clear his throat; he drank a considerable quant.i.ty of the stuff, but it did no good; he pointed to his throat and chest, shook his head and was going away. But it was asking too much of the Rahnstadters to expect them to submit to such a disappointment, they wouldn't let him off, and the candidate was obliged to give a representation of the Berlin revolution, in pantomime. So he constructed a couple of barricades,--in the air, so to speak, for, if he had taken hold of the Rahnstadt paving stones literally, the police would have been after him,--he shot, with his cane, behind the barricades, he stormed them,--still with his cane,--from in front, he ran about wildly among the people to represent the dragoons, and succeeded in imitating the thunder of the cannon, for he was just able to say ”b.u.mm!”
So the Rahnstadters knew, now, how a revolution looked, and how it should be conducted, and they sat together and drank beer and disputed, and things began to look so serious that even our friend Rein did not try to get off any more of his North pole stories. Sometimes, now, also, the grandees would come and drink beer, to earn popularity against the time when the revolution should begin here.
And it was seriously thought of. There were wide-awake people in Rahnstadt, as well as in other places, and although the citizens had no great common grievance, each had his little individual difficulty upon which to hang his discontent, one had this, another that, and Kurz had the stadtbullen. So it came about that all were united in the opinion that things must be different, and it would come to no good, if they did not have their revolution also,--that is to say, a little one.
Out of the indefinite reading of newspapers, came a definite Reformverein, with a president and a bell; and the irregular running up and down became regular, and the number of visitors became so large that the company adjourned, one evening, from the beer-house to the hall; but they took their beer-mugs along with them. All this happened in the greatest order, which is rather astonis.h.i.+ng when one considers that the company was made up of discontented people, for the only contented member of the union was the landlord, Grammelin. They had speech-making in the hall, at first from the tables and benches; but that was to be altered. Thiel, the joiner, made a round sort of thing, which should serve for the speaker's stand, and the first speech made from it was by Dreiern, the cooper, against Thiel himself, since he considered the thing to be rather cooper's work than joiner's work, and begged of the a.s.sembly protection for his trade. He did not carry it through, however, although it was apparent to all that the thing bore a striking resemblance to a cooling-vat for a brandy-still. The old stout baker, Wredow, also failed in carrying his motion that the cask should be made larger, since there was no room to move about in it; for, as Wimmersdorf the tailor told him, the thing was not made for stout people; they had had enough of folks who cared merely for their own comfort. The thing was meant for those who had nothing on their ribs, and it was large enough for them. And so it happened that only the lean people got a chance to speak, and the stout folks in their anger and vexation stayed away, at which the others declared themselves to be well pleased. But it was a mistake, for in this way they expelled ”the quiet element”--as it was called--from the union, and in their stead the day-laborers crowded in, and now they were ready for the revolution. The only two people of comfortable dimensions who still remained in the Reformverein, were Schultz the carpenter and Uncle Brasig.
No one could be more contented, in these restless times, than Uncle Brasig; he was always on the street; he was like a bee, or rather a humble-bee, and looked upon every house-door and every window in Rahnstadt as a flower whence he could suck news, and when his appet.i.te was satisfied he flew back to his place, and fed his friend Karl with his bee-bread: ”Karl, they have driven away Louis Philippe.”
”Is that in the papers?”
”I read it myself. Karl, he must have been an old coward. How is it possible a king could let himself be driven away?”
”Eh, Brasig, such things have happened before. Don't you remember about the Swedish Gustavus? When a people are all united against him, a king stands entirely alone.”
”You are fight there, Karl; but yet I wouldn't have run away. Thunder and lightning! I would sit on my throne and put the crown on my head, and kick and thrash with my arms and legs, if any one touched me.”
He came later, saying, ”Karl, the post has not come again from Berlin, to-day, and your young Herr rode in splas.h.i.+ng through the streets, up to the post-office, to make inquiries himself, and why not? But it came near going badly with him, for some of the burghers were already plotting together there, and asking themselves, by way of example, whether they ought to allow a n.o.bleman to go splas.h.i.+ng through the mud like that. Well, he rode off, afterwards, in quite a different manner, towards Moses' house, and then the matter was dropped. I had a word to say to Moses, and went there shortly after, and as I came up he was just coming out of the door; he looked at me, but did not know me; not that I take it unkindly of him, for his head was full of his own affairs, for I could hear Moses saying, 'What I have said, I have said: I will lend no money to a gambler.' Moses is coming here, this afternoon.”
So, in the afternoon, Moses came. ”Habermann, it is correct, it is all correct about Berlin.”