by Bret Harte
VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION
Outside of my window, two narrow perpendicular mirrors, parallelwith the casement, project into the street, yet with a certainunobtrusiveness of angle that enables them to reflect the people whopass, without any reciprocal disclosure of their own. The men and womenhurrying by not only do not know they are observed, but, what is worse,do not even see their own reflection in this hypocritical plane, andare consequently unable, through its aid, to correct any carelessnessof garb, gait, or demeanor. At first this seems to be taking an unfairadvantage of the human animal, who invariably assumes an attitudewhen he is conscious of being under human focus. But I observe that myneighbors' windows, right and left, have a similar apparatus, that thiscustom is evidently a local one, and the locality is German. Beingan American stranger, I am quite willing to leave the morality of thetransaction with the locality, and adapt myself to the custom: indeed,I had thought of offering it, figuratively, as an excuse for anyunfairness of observation I might make in these pages. But my Germanmirrors reflect without prejudice, selection, or comment; and theAmerican eye, I fear, is but mortal, and like all mortal eyes,figuratively as well as in that literal fact noted by an eminentscientific authority, infinitely inferior to the work of the best Germanopticians.
And this leads me to my first observation, namely, that a majority ofthose who pass my mirror have weak eyes, and have already invoked theaid of the optician. Why are these people, physically in all else somuch stronger than my countrymen, deficient in eyesight? Or, to omit thepassing testimony of my Spion, and take my own personal experience, whydoes my young friend Max, brightest of all schoolboys, who alreadywears the cap that denotes the highest class,--why does he shock me bysuddenly drawing forth a pair of spectacles, that upon his fresh, rosyface would be an obvious mocking imitation of the Herr Papa--if Germanchildren could ever, by any possibility, be irreverent? Or why does theFraulein Marie, his sister, pink as Aurora, round as Hebe, suddenlyveil her blue eyes with a golden lorgnette in the midst of our polyglotconversation? Is it to evade the direct, admiring glance of theimpulsive American? Dare I say NO? Dare I say that that frank, clear,honest, earnest return of the eye, which has on the Continent mostunfairly brought my fair countrywomen under criticism, is quite ascommon to her more carefully-guarded, tradition-hedged German sisters?No, it is not that. Is it any thing in these emerald and opal tintedskies, which seem so unreal to the American eye, and for the first timeexplain what seemed the unreality of German art? in these mysterious yetrestful Rhine fogs, which prolong the twilight, and hang the curtainof romance even over mid-day? Surely not. Is it not rather, O HerrProfessor profound in analogy and philosophy!--is it not ratherthis abominable black-letter, this elsewhere-discarded, uncouth,slowly-decaying text known as the German Alphabet, that plucks out thebright eyes of youth, and bristles the gateways of your language with achevaux de frise of splintered rubbish? Why must I hesitate whether itis an accident of the printer's press, or the poor quality of the paper,that makes this letter a "k" or a "t"? Why must I halt in an emotion ora thought because "s" and "f" are so nearly alike? Is it not enough thatI, an impulsive American, accustomed to do a thing first, and reflectupon it afterwards, must grope my way through a blind alley ofsubstantives and adjectives, only to find the verb of action in anobscure corner, without ruining my eyesight in the groping?
But I dismiss these abstract reflections for a fresh and activeresentment. This is the fifth or sixth dog that has passed my Spion,harnessed to a small barrow-like cart, and tugging painfully at aburden so ludicrously disproportionate to his size, that it would seem aburlesque, but for the poor dog's sad sincerity. Perhaps it is becauseI have the barbarian's fondness for dogs, and for their lawless, gentle,loving uselessness, that I rebel against this unnatural servitude. Itseems as monstrous as if a child were put between the shafts, and madeto carry burdens; and I have come to regard those men and women, who inthe weakest perfunctory way affect to aid the poor brute by layingidle hands on the barrow behind, as I would unnatural parents.Pegasus harnessed to the Thracian herdsman's plough was no more of adesecration. I fancy the poor dog seems to feel the monstrosity of theperformance, and, in sheer shame for his master, forgivingly tries toassume it is PLAY; and I have seen a little "colley" running along,barking, and endeavoring to leap and gambol in the shafts, before a loadthat any one out of this locality would have thought the direst cruelty.Nor do the older or more powerful dogs seem to become accustomed toit. When his cruel taskmaster halts with his wares, instantly the dog,either by sitting down in his harness, or crawling over the shafts, orby some unmistakable dog-like trick, utterly scatters any such delusionof even the habit of servitude. The few of his race who do not work inthis ducal city seem to have lost their democratic canine sympathies,and look upon him with something of that indifferent calm with whichyonder officer eyes the road-mender in the ditch below him. He loseseven the characteristics of species. The common cur and mastiff lookalike in harness. The burden levels all distinctions. I have said thathe was generally sincere in his efforts. I recall but one instance tothe contrary. I remember a young colley who first attracted my attentionby his persistent barking. Whether he did this, as the plough-boywhistled, "for want of thought," or whether it was a running protestagainst his occupation, I could not determine, until one day I noticed,that, in barking, he slightly threw up his neck and shoulders, and thatthe two-wheeled barrow-like vehicle behind him, having its weight evenlypoised on the wheels by the trucks in the hands of its driver, enabledhim by this movement to cunningly throw the center of gravity and thegreater weight on the man,--a fact which that less sagacious brute neverdiscerned. Perhaps I am using a strong expression regarding his driver.It may be that the purely animal wants of the dog, in the way of food,care, and shelter, are more bountifully supplied in servitude than infreedom; becoming a valuable and useful property, he may be cared forand protected as such (an odd recollection that this argument had beenused forcibly in regard to human slavery in my own country strikes mehere); but his picturesqueness and poetry are gone, and I cannothelp thinking that the people who have lost this gentle, sympathetic,characteristic figure from their domestic life and surroundings have notacquired an equal gain through his harsh labors.
To the American eye there is, throughout the length and breadth ofthis foreign city, no more notable and striking object than the averageGerman house-servant. It is not that she has passed my Spion a dozentimes within the last hour,--for here she is messenger, porter, andcommissionnaire, as well as housemaid and cook,--but that she is alwaysa phenomenon to the American stranger, accustomed to be abused inhis own country by his foreign Irish handmaiden. Her presence is asrefreshing and grateful as the morning light, and as inevitable andregular. When I add that with the novelty of being well served iscombined the satisfaction of knowing that you have in your household anintelligent being who reads and writes with fluency, and yet does notabstract your books, nor criticise your literary composition; who iscleanly clad, and neat in her person, without the suspicion of havingborrowed her mistress's dresses; who may be good-looking without theleast imputation of coquetry or addition to her followers; who isobedient without servility, polite without flattery, willing and repletewith supererogatory performance, without the expectation of immediatepecuniary return, what wonder that the American householder translatedinto German life feels himself in a new Eden of domestic possibilitiesunrealized in any other country, and begins to believe in a present andfuture of domestic happiness! What wonder that the American bachelorliving in German lodgings feels half the terrors of the conjugal futureremoved, and rushes madly into love--and housekeeping! What wonder thatI, a long-suffering and patient master, who have been served by thereticent but too imitative Chinaman; who have been "Massa" to thechildlike but untruthful negro; who have been the recipient of thebrotherly but uncertain ministrations of the South-Sea Islander, andhave been proudly disregarded by the American aborigine, only in duetime to meet the fate of my countrymen at the hands of
Bridget theCelt,--what wonder that I gladly seize this opportunity to sing thepraises of my German handmaid! Honor to thee, Lenchen, whereverthou goest! Heaven bless thee in thy walks abroad! whether with thattightly-booted cavalryman in thy Sunday gown and best, or in bluepolka-dotted apron and bare head as thou trottest nimbly on mineerrands,--errands which Bridget o'Flaherty would scorn to undertake, or,undertaking, would hopelessly blunder in. Heaven bless thee, child,in thy early risings and in thy later sittings, at thy festive boardoverflowing with Essig and Fett, in the mysteries of thy Kuchen, in thefulness of thy Bier, and in thy nightly suffocations beneath mountainousand multitudinous feathers! Good, honest, simple-minded, cheerful,duty-loving Lenchen! Have not thy brothers, strong and dutiful as thou,lent their gravity and earnestness to sweeten and strengthen the fierceyouth of the Republic beyond the seas? and shall not thy childreninherit the broad prairies that still wait for them, and discover thefatness thereof, and send a portion transmuted in glittering shekelsback to thee?
Almost as notable are the children whose round faces have as frequentlybeen reflected in my Spion. Whether it is only a fancy of mine thatthe average German retains longer than any other race his childishsimplicity and unconsciousness, or whether it is because I am moreaccustomed to the extreme self-assertion and early maturity of Americanchildren, I know not; but I am inclined to believe that among noother people is childhood as perennial, and to be studied in suchcharacteristic and quaint and simple phases as here. The picturesquenessof Spanish and Italian childhood has a faint suspicion of the pantomimeand the conscious attitudinizing of the Latin races. German children arenot exuberant or volatile: they are serious,--a seriousness, however,not to be confounded with the grave reflectiveness of age, but only theabstract wonderment of childhood; for all those who have made a lovingstudy of the young human animal will, I think, admit that its dominantexpression is GRAVITY, and not playfulness, and will be satisfiedthat he erred pitifully who first ascribed "light-heartedness" and"thoughtlessness" as part of its phenomena. These little creatures Imeet upon the street,--whether in quaint wooden shoes and short woollenpetticoats, or neatly booted and furred, with school knapsacks jauntilyborne upon little square shoulders,--all carry likewise in their roundchubby faces their profound wonderment and astonishment at the big busyworld into which they have so lately strayed. If I stop to speak withthis little maid who scarcely reaches to the top-boots of yonder cavalryofficer, there is less of bashful self-consciousness in her sweet littleface than of grave wonder at the foreign accent and strange ways ofthis new figure obtruded upon her limited horizon. She answers honestly,frankly, prettily, but gravely. There is a remote possibility that Imight bite; and, with this suspicion plainly indicated in her roundblue eyes, she quietly slips her little red hand from mine, and movessolemnly away. I remember once to have stopped in the street with a faircountrywoman of mine to interrogate a little figure in sabots,--theone quaint object in the long, formal perspective of narrow, graybastard-Italian facaded houses of a Rhenish German Strasse. The sweetlittle figure wore a dark-blue woollen petticoat that came to its knees;gray woollen stockings covered the shapely little limbs below; andits very blonde hair, the color of a bright dandelion, was tied in apathetic little knot at the back of its round head, and garnished withan absurd green ribbon. Now, although this gentlewoman's sympathies werecatholic and universal, unfortunately their expression was limited toher own mother-tongue. She could not help pouring out upon the child thematernal love that was in her own womanly breast, nor could she withholdthe "baby-talk" through which it was expressed. But, alas! it was inEnglish. Hence ensued a colloquy, tender and extravagant on the part ofthe elder, grave and wondering on the part of the child. But the ladyhad a natural feminine desire for reciprocity, particularly in thepresence of our emotion-scorning sex, and as a last resource she emptiedthe small silver of her purse into the lap of the coy maiden. It wasa declaration of love, susceptible of translation at the nearestcake-shop. But the little maid, whose dress and manner certainly did notbetray an habitual disregard of gifts of this kind, looked at the cointhoughtfully, but not regretfully. Some innate sense of duty, equallystrong with that of being polite to strangers, filled her consciousness.With the utterly unexpected remark that her father 'did not allow herto take money', the queer little figure moved away, leaving the twoAmericans covered with mortification. The rare American child who couldhave done this would have done it with an attitude. This little Germanbourgeoise did it naturally. I do not intend to rush to the deductionthat German children of the lower classes habitually refuse pecuniarygratuities: indeed, I remember to have wickedly suggested to mycompanion, that, to avoid impoverishment in a foreign land, she shouldnot repeat the story nor the experiment. But I simply offer it as afact, and to an American, at home or abroad, a novel one.
I owe to these little figures another experience quite as strange.It was at the close of a dull winter's day,--a day from which allout-of-door festivity seemed to be naturally excluded: there was abaleful promise of snow in the air and a dismal reminiscence of it underfoot, when suddenly, in striking contrast with the dreadful bleaknessof the street, a half dozen children, masked and bedizened with cheapribbons, spangles, and embroidery, flashed across my Spion. I was quickto understand the phenomenon. It was the Carnival season. Only the nightbefore I had been to the great opening masquerade,--a famous affair, forwhich this art-loving city is noted, and to which strangers are drawnfrom all parts of the Continent. I remember to have wondered ifthe pleasure-loving German in America had not broken some of hisconventional shackles in emigration; for certainly I had found theCarnival balls of the "Lieder Kranz Society" in New York, althoughdecorous and fashionable to the American taste, to be wild dissipationscompared with the practical seriousness of this native performance, andI hailed the presence of these children in the open street as a promiseof some extravagance, real, untrammelled, and characteristic. I seizedmy hat and--OVERCOAT,--a dreadful incongruity to the spangles that hadwhisked by, and followed the vanishing figures round the corner. Herethey were re-enforced by a dozen men and women, fantastically, but notexpensively arrayed, looking not unlike the supernumeraries of someprovincial opera troupe. Following the crowd, which already began topour in from the side-streets, in a few moments I was in the broad,grove-like allee, and in the midst of the masqueraders.
I remember to have been told that this was a characteristic annualcelebration of the lower classes, anticipated with eagerness, andachieved with difficulty, indeed, often only through the alternative ofpawning clothing and furniture to provide the means for this ephemeraltransformation. I remember being warned, also, that the buffoonery wascoarse, and some of the slang hardly fit for "ears polite." But I amafraid that I was not shocked at the prodigality of these poor people,who purchased a holiday on such hard conditions; and, as to thecoarseness of the performance, I felt that I certainly might go wherethese children could.
At first the masquerading figures appeared to be mainly composed ofyoung girls of ages varying from nine to eighteen. Their costumes--ifwhat was often only the addition of a broad, bright-colored stripe tothe hem of a short dress could be called a COSTUME--were plain, andseemed to indicate no particular historical epoch or character. Ageneral suggestion of the peasant's holiday attire was dominant inall the costumes. Everybody was closely masked. All carried a short,gayly-striped baton of split wood, called a Pritsche, which, when strucksharply on the back or shoulders of some spectator or sister-masker,emitted a clattering, rasping sound. To wander hand in hand down thisbroad allee, to strike almost mechanically, and often monotonously,at each other with their batons, seemed to be the extent of that wilddissipation. The crowd thickened. Young men with false noses, hideousmasks, cheap black or red cotton dominoes, soldiers in uniform, crowdedpast each other, up and down the promenade, all carrying a Pritsche,and exchanging blows with each other, but always with the same slowseriousness of demeanor, which, with their silence, gave the performancethe effect of a religious rite. Occasionall
y some one shouted: perhaps adozen young fellows broke out in song; but the shout was provocative ofnothing, the song faltered as if the singers were frightened at theirown voices. One blithe fellow, with a bear's head on his fur-cappedshoulders, began to dance; but, on the crowd stopping to observehim seriously, he apparently thought better of it, and slipped away.Nevertheless, the solemn beating of Pritschen over each other's backswent on. I remember that I was followed the whole length of the allee bya little girl scarcely twelve years old, in a bright striped skirt andblack mask, who from time to time struck me over the shoulders with aregularity and sad persistency that was peculiarly irresistible tome; the more so, as I could not help thinking that it was not half asamusing to herself. Once only did the ordinary brusque gallantry of theCarnival spirit show itself. A man with an enormous pair of horns, likea half-civilized satyr, suddenly seized a young girl and endeavored tokiss her. A slight struggle ensued, in which I fancied I detected in thegirl's face and manner the confusion and embarrassment of one whowas obliged to overlook, or seem to accept, a familiarity that wasdistasteful, rather than be laughed at for prudishness or ignorance. Butthe incident was exceptional. Indeed, it was particularly notable to myAmerican eyes to find such decorum where there might easily have beenthe greatest license. I am afraid that an American mob of this classwould have scarcely been as orderly and civil under the circumstances.They might have shown more humor; but there would have probably beenmore effrontery: they might have been more exuberant; they wouldcertainly have been drunker. I did not notice a single masqueraderunduly excited by liquor: there was not a word or motion from thelighter sex that could have been construed into an impropriety. Therewas something almost pathetic to me in this attempt to wrest gayety andexcitement out of these dull materials; to fight against the blacknessof that wintry sky, and the stubborn hardness of the frozen soil, withthese painted sticks of wood; to mock the dreariness of their povertywith these flaunting raiments. It did not seem like them, or rather,consistent with my idea of them. There was incongruity deeper than theirbizarre externals; a half-melancholy, half-crazy absurdity in theiraction, the substitution of a grim spasmodic frenzy for levity, thatrightly or wrongly impressed me. When the increasing gloom of theevening made their figures undistinguishable, I turned into the firstcross-street. As I lifted my hat to my persistent young friend with thePritsche, I fancied she looked as relieved as myself. If, however, Iwas mistaken; if that child's pathway through life be strewn with rosyrecollections of the unresisting back of the stranger American; if anyburden, O Gretchen! laid upon thy young shoulders, be lighter for thetrifling one thou didst lay upon mine,--know, then, that I, too, amcontent.
And so, day by day, has my Spion reflected the various changing formsof life before it. It has seen the first flush of spring in the broadallee, when the shadows of tiny leaflets overhead were beginning tochecker the cool, square flagstones. It has seen the glare and fulnessof summer sunshine and shadow, the flying of November gold through theair, the gaunt limbs, and stark, rigid, death-like whiteness of winter.It has seen children in their queer, wicker baby-carriages, old men andwomen, and occasionally that grim usher of death, in sable cloak andcocked hat,--a baleful figure for the wandering invalid tourist tomeet,--who acts as undertaker for this ducal city, and marshals thelast melancholy procession. I well remember my first meeting with thisominous functionary. It was an early autumnal morning; so early, thatthe long formal perspective of the allee, and the decorous, smoothvanishing-lines of cream-and-gray fronted houses, were unrelieved by asingle human figure. Suddenly a tall black spectre, as theatrical andas unreal as the painted scenic distance, turned the corner from across-street, and moved slowly towards me. A long black cloak, fallingfrom its shoulders to its feet, floated out on either side like sablewings; a cocked hat trimmed with crape, and surmounted by a hearse-likefeather, covered a passionless face; and its eyes, looking neither leftnor right, were fixed fatefully upon some distant goal. Stranger as Iwas to this Continental ceremonial figure, there was no mistaking hisfunctions as the grim messenger, knocking "with equal foot" on everydoor; and, indeed, so perfectly did he act and look his role, that therewas nothing ludicrous in the extraordinary spectacle. Facial expressionand dignity of bearing were perfect; the whole man seemed saturated withthe accepted sentiment of his office. Recalling the half-confusedand half-conscious ostentatious hypocrisy of the American sexton, theshameless absurdities of the English mutes and mourners, I could nothelp feeling, that, if it were demanded that Grief and Fate should bepersonified, it were better that it should be well done. And it isone observation of my Spion, that this sincerity and belief is thecharacteristic of all Continental functionaries.
It is possible that my Spion has shown me little that is reallycharacteristic of the people, and the few observations I have made Ioffer only as an illustration of the impressions made upon two-thirds ofAmerican strangers in the larger towns of Germany. Assimilation goes onmore rapidly than we are led to imagine. As I have seen my friend Karl,fresh and awkward in his first uniform, lounging later down the alleewith the blase listlessness of a full-blown militaire, so I have seenAmerican and English residents gradually lose their peculiarities, andmelt and merge into the general mass. Returning to my Spion aftera flying trip through Belgium and France, as I look down the longperspective of the Strasse, I am conscious of recalling the same styleof architecture and humanity at Aachen, Brussels, Lille, and Paris, andam inclined to believe that, even as I would have met, in a journey ofthe same distance through a parallel of the same latitude in America, agreater diversity of type and character, and a more distinct flavor oflocality, even so would I have met a more heterogeneous and picturesquedisplay from a club window on Fifth Avenue, New York, or MontgomeryStreet, San Francisco.
