Part 68 (1/2)

Hauning said nothing to this advice, but she looked as if, for her part, she had no intention of acting upon it, and Pomuchelskopp turned to Malchen and Salchen: ”Children, I beg of you, not a word of what is spoken here! Not a word to the servants! and be friendly to the people, and beg your dear mama to be friendly also. Lord knows, I have always been for friendliness!”

And then Malchen and Salchen began upon Hauning: ”Mama, you have'nt heard, you don't know what is going on everywhere. Johann Jochen told in the kitchen how the laborers' wives have scourged the proprietor Z.

of X. with nettles. Mama, we must give in to them; it won't do.”

”You are all fools,” said Hauning, going out of the room. ”Shall I be afraid of such a pack?” and she closed the door. But in this condition of supernatural, heroic courage, she stood quite alone, and without other help it was quite useless, for Muchel in his distress for the future, would neither stir nor move, and the remaining members of this simple family, for once, sided with their father.

”Children,” cried the father, ”every one must be treated kindly. The confounded wretches! Who would have thought of this, three months ago?

Philipping and Nanting, you must not beat the village children any more, and don't draw an a.s.s's head on the back of old Brinkman's coat again! These rascals! But they are set on by that cursed Rahnstadt Reformverein, and by the Jews and the shopkeepers; but wait a bit!”

”Yes, father,” said Salchen, ”and Ruhrdanz the weaver has already joined the Reformverein, and the rest of the villagers will all follow his example; and it may be a bad thing.”

”Good heavens, I should think so! But wait, I must get the start of them, I will join it myself.”

”You?” cried the two girls, in one breath, as if their father had proposed to sit fire to his house and home, with his own hands.

”I must, I must! It will make me popular among the burghers, so that they will not excite the canaille against me; I will pay up the tradesmen's bills, and--yes, it must be done,--I will advance something to my day-laborers.”

Malchen and Salchen were astonished, never in their lives had they heard father talk like that; but they were still more astonished when father went on to say, ”And let me tell you one thing, you must be very civil to the Herr Pastor and the Frau Pastorin,--good heavens, yes! Mother won't do it--Hauning, what trouble you make me! The parsonage people can do us a great deal of good, or a great deal of harm. Ah, what can not a proprietor and a pastor accomplish, if they stand faithfully by each other, in these bad times! We must send them a friendly invitation; by and by, when it is quiet again, we can drop the intercourse, if it does not suit us.”

And sure enough! After a few days Pastor Gottlieb received a note containing the compliments of the Herr and the Frau Pomuchelskopp--for old Hauning had given in on this point--to the Herr Pastor and the Frau Pastorin, and requesting the honor of their company to dinner. The man waited for an answer. Brasig happened to be there, having come over to look after things a little. When Gottlieb read the invitation, he stood there, looking as if he had received a summons to the Ecclesiastical Consistory, to answer to charges of false doctrine, or immoral conduct.

”What?” he exclaimed, ”an invitation from our proprietor? Where is Lining? Lining!” he called, out at the door. Lining came, read the letter, and looked at Gottlieb, who stood before her without a word, then she looked at Brasig, who sat in the sofa-corner, grinning like a Whitsun ox. ”Well,” she said at last, ”we cannot go, of course?”

”Dear wife,” said Pastor Gottlieb,--he always called her ”dear wife,”

when he wished to throw the weight of his clerical dignity into the balance, at other times he said merely ”Lining,”--”dear wife, you should not refuse the hand that your brother offers.”

”Gottlieb,” said Lining, ”this is not a hand, it is a dinner, and the brother is Pomuchelskopp. Am I not right, Uncle Brasig?” Brasig said nothing, he only grinned, he sat there like Moses' David, when he had staked a louis-d'or, and waited to see whether clerical dignity, or good, sound common sense would turn the scale.

”Dear wife,” continued Gottlieb, ”it is written, 'Let not the sun go down upon your wrath,' and 'If thy brother smite thee on one cheek,'----”

”Gottlieb, that does not apply to this affair; we have no wrath against him, and as for smiting on the cheek, I am of Brasig's opinion. G.o.d forgive me the sin! it may have been different in old times, but if it were the fas.h.i.+on now, there would be a great deal of grumbling in the world, for we should all go about with swollen cheeks.”

”But, dear wife----”

”Gottlieb, you know I never interfere in your clerical affairs; but a dinner is a worldly affair, and one at the Pomuchelskopps is more than worldly. And then, you quite forget, we have company. Isn't Uncle Brasig here? And wouldn't you rather dine here to-day, with Uncle Brasig, on pea soup and pigs' ears than at Pomuchelskopp's grand dinner? And they have not invited Mining either,” she added, as Mining entered the room, ”and they know that Mining lives with us.”

This decided Gottlieb, he liked pea soup and was particularly fond of pigs' ears; and I must say that he thought highly of Uncle Brasig, who had helped him so much and stood by him so faithfully, and one of his greatest clerical grievances was that such a man as Uncle Brasig, whose life was so honest and honorable, had yet so little the outward demeanour of a Christian and churchman. So he declined Pomuchelskopp's invitation, but when they had sat down to their pea soup, and Brasig came out recklessly with the information that he was really a member of the Rahnstadt Reformverein, Pastor Gottlieb sprang to his feet, regardless of the pigs'-ears, and delivered a regular sermon against the Reformverein. Lining pulled him by the coat, now and then, telling him that his soup would be cold; but Gottlieb was not to be diverted: ”Yes,” he cried, ”the vengeance of G.o.d has come upon the world; but woe to the men whom he chooses as the instruments of his vengeance!”

Since they were not in church Brasig ventured to interrupt him, inquiring whom the Lord had chosen for the purpose.

”That is in the hand of the Lord!” cried Gottlieb. ”He may choose me, he may choose Lining, he may choose you.”

”He will not choose Lining and me,” said Brasig, wiping his mouth, ”Lining fed the poor, in the year '47, and I have, for several weeks, declared for equality and fraternity in the Reformverein; I am no avenger, I wouldn't harm any man; but if I could get hold of Zamel Pomuchelskopp, then----”

Gottlieb was too excited to listen longer, and went on with his discourse: ”Oh, the devil is going about the world like a roaring lion, and every speaker's stand, in these cursed Reformvereins, is an altar, on which sacrifice is offered to him; but I will oppose to this altar another; in the House of G.o.d I will preach against this sacrificing to devils, against these Reformvereins, against those false G.o.ds and their altars!”

With that, he resumed his seat, and ate, hastily, a couple of spoonfuls of pea-soup. Brasig left him in quiet for a while; but when he saw that the young clergyman had come back to worldly affairs sufficiently to attack the pigs' ears, he said, ”Herr Pastor, you are right in one point, the speaker's stand at Rahnstadt looks uncommonly like a devil's altar, that is to say, a cooling-vat from a distillery; but I can't say that sacrifices are offered to him upon it, unless Wimmersdorf the tailor does it, or Kurz, or your respected father, for he always makes the longest speeches,--no, don't interrupt me!--I was only going to say, so far as I am acquainted with the devil, and that is now a good many years, he would not meddle with the Rahnstadt Reformverein, for he is not so stupid.”