Black Forest Village Stories Part 47

At last he threw off his languor and walked out into the fields and on the road by which he had come. The farmers working here and there said, "How goes it, Mr. Teacher? 'Getting used to it?" He answered kindly but curtly: their familiarity struck him as odd, and almost offensive. He did not know that these people thought they had a claim upon him because they had first seen him and received his first salutations.

After a long ramble, he found in "The Bottom" a solitary pear-tree of picturesque growth. Having walked round and round it until he found the most fitting spot, he sat down upon a corner-stone and began to sketch.

The farmers gathered around and looked on. The rumor went rapidly from mouth to mouth that "the new teacher was copying the trees."

As a background he drew the hill beyond, with the hazel-bush and the blackberry-hedge which wound around a cliff, as well as the little field-house built to keep farming-implements or to protect field-hands against sudden showers: last of all, he added a farmer, with horse and plough.

Late in the day he rose to return, with his spirits much calmed by his occupation. Several peasants joined him and gave evidence of a burning thirst for information. Our friend submitted to it all with the best grace he could a.s.sume. But it was unfortunate that, when asked whether "it wasn't a fine country hereabouts," he answered, "Tolerable." He saw but little in it of the picturesque.

Being struck with the clumsiness of the church-steeple, he asked who had built the church. They looked at each other in astonishment; for they could not bring themselves to think that there should ever have been a time when that church was not standing.

At home the teacher sat waiting for Buchmaier, who, he thought, would come to meet him. The dusk of evening brought out a more lively hum of voices: the teacher alone sat silently at his open window. The suggestion of Mat could not but return to his mind; and he thought seriously of seeking a companion who would rescue him from the lot of being

"Among monsters the only heart feeling a throb."

It was Friday evening: the young Jews pa.s.sed, singing through the streets, according to custom. There was a voice among them once which no longer sings so merrily. Some songs were given from books: just as they pa.s.sed the schoolhouse they sang the beautiful air,--

"Heart, my heart, why weep'st thou sadly?

Why so still, and why so grave?

Sure the stranger's land is lovely: Heart, my heart, what wouldst thou have?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: The teacher took up his violin and played.]

As the sound died away, the teacher felt the full force of the music in his soul. He took up his violin and played that remarkable waltz ascribed to Beethoven,--Le Desir. Nothing of the kind had ever been heard in the village, and a crowd soon a.s.sembled at the window. To please them as well as himself, he struck up another waltz, full of life and frolic. The shouts and laughter of the listeners rewarded him.

Tired at last of solitude, he left the house, and, meeting Mat, inquired where Buchmaier might be looked for.

"Come along," was the answer: "he's at the Eagle every Friday night."

The teacher complied, though he thought it very wrong for the squire to be sitting in the tavern like anybody else. He found a large concourse, engaged in animated conversation. The Jews, who are generally out of the village at other times, were now mingling with their Christian fellow-citizens and drinking: they testified their reverence for the Sabbath only by abstaining from the use of tobacco.

After a brief halt consequent upon the new schoolmaster's entrance, Buchmaier, who had made room for him at the table, continued his remarks:--

"As I was saying, Thiers wanted to do France brown with a slice of German lard; but he's found the mess too salt for his fancy, and another time he won't be so greedy. What do you think of it, Mr.

Teacher?"

"You're very right; but we ought to have Alsace back again besides."

"So we ought, only the Alsatians won't come back. The last time I was in Strasbourg I was right-down ashamed of myself the way they treated me,--wanting to know whether we wouldn't soon have some more counterfeit money that didn't belong anywhere. A real fine man I met with said that the office-holders over there would like to be German very much, because here they are paid best and cared for to the third and fourth generation, and sure of their places, but in France they can't come it quite so strong. And, if it was to be German again, who should have it? A son of the counterfeit sixer? I believe there's one in circulation yet? Or a sweated Hanoverian ten-guilder piece? I guess they wouldn't give it to any one alone: they'd cut it into snips, just as they chipped up the left bank of the Rhine, so that everybody might see it was German and no mistake."

"While the teacher sat dumb with, astonishment at this audacious utterance, a stout man, whose dress and accent bespoke the Israelite, began:--

"Yes; and the Jews in Alsatia--there's lots of 'em, too--would rather be butchered than made Germans of. Over there they're every whit as good as the Christian citizens, and here they pay the same taxes and serve in the army just like the Christiana, and only have half their rights."

"You're right, Mendle, but you won't be righted," replied Buchmaier.

After a pause, Buchmaier began again:--

"Mr. Teacher, what do you think of the cruelty-to-animals societies?

Can anybody tell me not to do as I like with my own? Can anybody punish me for such things?"

In this question again the teacher saw nothing but coa.r.s.eness and barbarity: with vehemence he advocated the ordinances and regulations prohibiting the practices in question. Buchmaier rejoined:--

"In cities it may be right enough to admonish people not to be hard on their cattle; but punis.h.i.+ng is n.o.body's business. These coachmen and omnibus-drivers and liveried officials--I mean to say, liveried servants--have no feeling for their cattle, because very often they don't even own 'em, and, as for having raised 'em, that's not to be thought of. But in the country I've seen people cry more when one of their cows falls than when their children die."

"The gentlefolks ought to stop being cruel to the peasants first," said Mat. "The old judge always talked to his dog as if it was his baby, and snarled at the farmers as if they were other people's dogs. Let them get up a society first that n.o.body's to say 'sirrah' to a farmer any more."

"Yes," said Buchmaier: "the point of the joke is that the office-holders would like to have a little government over the cattle.

Mark my words: if things go on this way it won't be ten years before a man will receive a command that he's to plant this and not that, and that he's to plough this field and let that lie fallow: there'll be societies about cruelty to the fields, and all that sort of thing."

"If men are not rational enough," said the teacher, "to be moderate in all things, it is the duty of the state to inculcate what is good by the fear of punishment."

"Never, if I live a hundred years," said Buchmaier, fiercely, suddenly checking himself, however, either because he bethought himself of the dignity of his station, or because he really had nothing else to say.

He emptied his gla.s.s by slow pulls; while a man with curled hair, somewhat grizzled, said, in High German, but still in the singing tone of the Jews, "Men may be punished for doing wrong; but there's no such thing as forcing them to be good: goodness effected by compulsion is not goodness."

"Right," said Buchmaier. The teacher, however, did not heed the remark: it is not to be supposed that, like other learned men, he chose to treat an objection urged by a Jew as if it had not been uttered; but he probably regarded Buchmaier alone as his adversary, for he asked him,--

"Do you believe that the state has a right to compel people under a penalty, to send their children to school?"

"Of course; of course."

"But why?"

"Because that's all right and proper."

"But you say we have no right to compel people to be good."

"Yes; but you can punish people when they do wrong; and a man does wrong who won't send his child to school. Isn't it so?" he concluded, turning to the man who had spoken before.

"Certainly," answered the latter. "The state is the guardian of those who don't know how to take care of themselves. Just as it is its duty to watch over a child that has lost its parents, so it must vindicate its rights when infringed by those who are too mean or too ignorant to do their duty by them."

"Right; just right," said Buchmaier, triumphantly.

Without either addressing or avoiding the speaker, whom he regarded as an interloper, the teacher said, "If the state is the guardian of the unprotected and the defenceless, it is also bound to see to the well-being of the cattle, for they are in like case as children are."

"Apple-cores and pear cider! How came the beets into the potato-sack?"

said Buchmaier, laughing. "By your leave, Mr. Teacher, you've got into a snarl there. I've a heifer at home that hasn't a father nor a mother; and I'll have to call the town-meeting to-morrow to appoint a guardian."

Roars of laughter shook the building. The teacher made great efforts to define his position, but could not obtain a hearing. The whole company were but too glad to see the conversation--which had become almost serious--turn into this comical by-way. All he could do was to protest that he had never intended to rank children and cattle alike.

"Oh, of course not!" said Buchmaier. "Why, you kissed Mat's Johnnie to-day, and that's more than anybody does to a beast. But now it seems as if I was three times more certain than ever that these cruelty-to-animals societies are like tying up the hens' tails,--as if they didn't carry them upright, anyhow."

The tide of merriment swelled into a torrent, and what it carried on its bosom was not all of dainty texture. The teacher was not in a mood to be carried away by the current: on the contrary, it hara.s.sed and worried him. He soon quitted the inn with that gnawing sensation which befalls us when we have been misunderstood because not heard to the end. He perceived how difficult it is to lead an a.s.semblage of grown persons through the profound and exhaustive a.n.a.lysis of any subject.

But, leaving this train of thought, he soon suffered himself to suppose that he had met with that phase of barbarism which consists not in the absence of polish, but in the conceited disdain of culture and refinement. He was much mortified. The resolution to confine himself exclusively to the companions.h.i.+p of docile childhood and of uncorrupted nature was confirmed in his mind.

Next day (Sat.u.r.day) the teacher called on the councilmen, but found none of them at home. His last errand was to the old schoolmaster, whose house he found at the lower end of a pretty garden which opened on the road. The beds were measured with lead and string, and skirted with box; the hedge of beech which enclosed the whole was smoothly shorn, and, at regular intervals, little stems rose over the hedge, crowned with spherical foliage. In the midst was a rotunda, forming a natural basin, girt with box and garnished with all sorts of buds and flowers. At the foot of the garden, near the arbor, voices were heard in conversation. Advancing in that direction, he said to the two men whom he found there,--

"Can I see Mr. Schoolmaster?"

"Two of 'em: ha, ha!" said the elder, who was without a coat, and had a hoe in his hand.