Stories in Light and Shadow

B >> Bret Harte >> Stories in Light and Shadow

STORIES IN LIGHT AND SHADOW

By Bret Harte


From: "ARGONAUT EDITION" OF THE WORKS OF BRET HARTE, VOL. 13

P. F. COLLIER & SON

NEW YORK



CONTENTS

"UNSER KARL"

UNCLE JIM AND UNCLE BILLY

SEE YUP

THE DESBOROUGH CONNECTIONS

SALOMY JANE'S KISS

THE MAN AND THE MOUNTAIN

THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ




STORIES IN LIGHT AND SHADOW




"UNSER KARL"


The American consul for Schlachtstadt had just turned out of the broad
Konig's Allee into the little square that held his consulate. Its
residences always seemed to him to wear that singularly uninhabited air
peculiar to a street scene in a theatre. The facades, with their stiff,
striped wooden awnings over the windows, were of the regularity, color,
and pattern only seen on the stage, and conversation carried on in the
street below always seemed to be invested with that perfect confidence
and security which surrounds the actor in his painted desert of urban
perspective. Yet it was a peaceful change to the other byways and
highways of Schlachtstadt which were always filled with an equally
unreal and mechanical soldiery, who appeared to be daily taken out of
their boxes of "caserne" or "depot" and loosely scattered all over
the pretty linden-haunted German town. There were soldiers standing on
street corners; soldiers staring woodenly into shop windows; soldiers
halted suddenly into stone, like lizards, at the approach of Offiziere;
Offiziere lounging stiffly four abreast, sweeping the pavement with
their trailing sabres all at one angle. There were cavalcades of
red hussars, cavalcades of blue hussars, cavalcades of Uhlans, with
glittering lances and pennons--with or without a band--formally
parading; there were straggling "fatigues" or "details" coming round
the corners; there were dusty, businesslike columns of infantry, going
nowhere and to no purpose. And they one and all seemed to be WOUND
UP--for that service--and apparently always in the same place. In the
band of their caps--invariably of one pattern--was a button, in the
centre of which was a square opening or keyhole. The consul was always
convinced that through this keyhole opening, by means of a key, the
humblest caporal wound up his file, the Hauptmann controlled his
lieutenants and non-commissioned officers, and even the general himself,
wearing the same cap, was subject through his cap to a higher moving
power. In the suburbs, when the supply of soldiers gave out, there
were sentry-boxes; when these dropped off, there were "caissons," or
commissary wagons. And, lest the military idea should ever fail from
out the Schlachtstadt's burgher's mind, there were police in uniform,
street-sweepers in uniform; the ticket-takers, guards, and sweepers at
the Bahnhof were in uniform,--but all wearing the same kind of cap, with
the probability of having been wound up freshly each morning for their
daily work. Even the postman delivered peaceful invoices to the consul
with his side-arms and the air of bringing dispatches from the field
of battle; and the consul saluted, and felt for a few moments the whole
weight of his consular responsibility.

Yet, in spite of this military precedence, it did not seem in the least
inconsistent with the decidedly peaceful character of the town, and this
again suggested its utter unreality; wandering cows sometimes got mixed
up with squadrons of cavalry, and did not seem to mind it; sheep passed
singly between files of infantry, or preceded them in a flock when on
the march; indeed, nothing could be more delightful and innocent than
to see a regiment of infantry in heavy marching order, laden with every
conceivable thing they could want for a week, returning after a cheerful
search for an invisible enemy in the suburbs, to bivouac peacefully
among the cabbages in the market-place. Nobody was ever imposed upon
for a moment by their tremendous energy and severe display; drums might
beat, trumpets blow, dragoons charge furiously all over the Exercier
Platz, or suddenly flash their naked swords in the streets to the
guttural command of an officer--nobody seemed to mind it. People glanced
up to recognize Rudolf or Max "doing their service," nodded, and went
about their business. And although the officers always wore their
side-arms, and at the most peaceful of social dinners only relinquished
their swords in the hall, apparently that they might be ready to buckle
them on again and rush out to do battle for the Fatherland between the
courses, the other guests only looked upon these weapons in the light
of sticks and umbrellas, and possessed their souls in peace. And
when, added to this singular incongruity, many of these warriors were
spectacled, studious men, and, despite their lethal weapons, wore a
slightly professional air, and were--to a man--deeply sentimental and
singularly simple, their attitude in this eternal Kriegspiel seemed to
the consul more puzzling than ever.

As he entered his consulate he was confronted with another aspect of
Schlachtstadt quite as wonderful, yet already familiar to him. For,
in spite of these "alarums without," which, however, never seem to
penetrate beyond the town itself, Schlachtstadt and its suburbs were
known all over the world for the manufactures of certain beautiful
textile fabrics, and many of the rank and file of those warriors had
built up the fame and prosperity of the district over their peaceful
looms in wayside cottages. There were great depots and counting-houses,
larger than even the cavalry barracks, where no other uniform but that
of the postman was known. Hence it was that the consul's chief duty
was to uphold the flag of his own country by the examination
and certification of divers invoices sent to his office by the
manufacturers. But, oddly enough, these business messengers were chiefly
women,--not clerks, but ordinary household servants, and, on busy days,
the consulate might have been mistaken for a female registry office,
so filled and possessed it was by waiting Madchen. Here it was that
Gretchen, Lieschen, and Clarchen, in the cleanest of blue gowns, and
stoutly but smartly shod, brought their invoices in a piece of clean
paper, or folded in a blue handkerchief, and laid them, with fingers
more or less worn and stubby from hard service, before the consul for
his signature. Once, in the case of a very young Madchen, that signature
was blotted by the sweep of a flaxen braid upon it as the child turned
to go; but generally there was a grave, serious business instinct and
sense of responsibility in these girls of ordinary peasant origin which,
equally with their sisters of France, were unknown to the English or
American woman of any class.

That morning, however, there was a slight stir among those who, with
their knitting, were waiting their turn in the outer office as the
vice-consul ushered the police inspector into the consul's private
office. He was in uniform, of course, and it took him a moment to
recover from his habitual stiff, military salute,--a little stiffer than
that of the actual soldier.

It was a matter of importance! A stranger had that morning been arrested
in the town and identified as a military deserter. He claimed to be an
American citizen; he was now in the outer office, waiting the consul's
interrogation.

The consul knew, however, that the ominous accusation had only a mild
significance here. The term "military deserter" included any one who
had in youth emigrated to a foreign country without first fulfilling his
military duty to his fatherland. His first experiences of these cases
had been tedious and difficult,--involving a reference to his Minister
at Berlin, a correspondence with the American State Department, a
condition of unpleasant tension, and finally the prolonged detention of
some innocent German--naturalized--American citizen, who had forgotten
to bring his papers with him in revisiting his own native country. It so
chanced, however, that the consul enjoyed the friendship and confidence
of the General Adlerkreutz, who commanded the 20th Division, and it
further chanced that the same Adlerkreutz was as gallant a soldier as
ever cried Vorwarts! at the head of his men, as profound a military
strategist and organizer as ever carried his own and his enemy's
plans in his iron head and spiked helmet, and yet with as simple and
unaffected a soul breathing under his gray mustache as ever issued from
the lips of a child. So this grim but gentle veteran had arranged
with the consul that in cases where the presumption of nationality
was strong, although the evidence was not present, he would take the
consul's parole for the appearance of the "deserter" or his papers,
without the aid of prolonged diplomacy. In this way the consul had saved
to Milwaukee a worthy but imprudent brewer, and to New York an excellent
sausage butcher and possible alderman; but had returned to martial duty
one or two tramps or journeymen who had never seen America except from
the decks of the ships in which they were "stowaways," and on which they
were returned,--and thus the temper and peace of two great nations were
preserved.

"He says," said the inspector severely, "that he is an American citizen,
but has lost his naturalization papers. Yet he has made the damaging
admission to others that he lived several years in Rome! And," continued
the inspector, looking over his shoulder at the closed door as he placed
his finger beside his nose, "he says he has relations living
at Palmyra, whom he frequently visited. Ach! Observe this
unheard-of-and-not-to-be-trusted statement!"

The consul, however, smiled with a slight flash of intelligence. "Let me
see him," he said.

They passed into the outer office; another policeman and a corporal of
infantry saluted and rose. In the centre of an admiring and sympathetic
crowd of Dienstmadchen sat the culprit, the least concerned of the
party; a stripling--a boy--scarcely out of his teens! Indeed, it was
impossible to conceive of a more innocent, bucolic, and almost angelic
looking derelict. With a skin that had the peculiar white and rosiness
of fresh pork, he had blue eyes, celestially wide open and staring, and
the thick flocculent yellow curls of the sun god! He might have been
an overgrown and badly dressed Cupid who had innocently wandered from
Paphian shores. He smiled as the consul entered, and wiped from his
full red lips with the back of his hand the traces of a sausage he was
eating. The consul recognized the flavor at once,--he had smelled it
before in Lieschen's little hand-basket.

"You say you lived at Rome?" began the consul pleasantly. "Did you take
out your first declaration of your intention of becoming an American
citizen there?"

The inspector cast an approving glance at the consul, fixed a stern eye
on the cherubic prisoner, and leaned back in his chair to hear the reply
to this terrible question.

"I don't remember," said the culprit, knitting his brows in infantine
thought. "It was either there, or at Madrid or Syracuse."

The inspector was about to rise; this was really trifling with the
dignity of the municipality. But the consul laid his hand on the
official's sleeve, and, opening an American atlas to a map of the State
of New York, said to the prisoner, as he placed the inspector's hand on
the sheet, "I see you know the names of the TOWNS on the Erie and New
York Central Railroad. But"--

"I can tell you the number of people in each town and what are the
manufactures," interrupted the young fellow, with youthful vanity.
"Madrid has six thousand, and there are over sixty thousand in"--

"That will do," said the consul, as a murmur of Wunderschon! went round
the group of listening servant girls, while glances of admiration were
shot at the beaming accused. "But you ought to remember the name of the
town where your naturalization papers were afterwards sent."

"But I was a citizen from the moment I made my declaration," said the
stranger smiling, and looking triumphantly at his admirers, "and I could
vote!"

The inspector, since he had come to grief over American geographical
nomenclature, was grimly taciturn. The consul, however, was by no means
certain of his victory. His alleged fellow citizen was too encyclopaedic
in his knowledge: a clever youth might have crammed for this with a
textbook, but then he did not LOOK at all clever; indeed, he had rather
the stupidity of the mythological subject he represented. "Leave him
with me," said the consul. The inspector handed him a precis of the
case. The cherub's name was Karl Schwartz, an orphan, missing from
Schlachtstadt since the age of twelve. Relations not living, or in
emigration. Identity established by prisoner's admission and record.

"Now, Karl," said the consul cheerfully, as the door of his private
office closed upon them, "what is your little game? Have you EVER had
any papers? And if you were clever enough to study the map of New York
State, why weren't you clever enough to see that it wouldn't stand you
in place of your papers?"

"Dot's joost it," said Karl in English; "but you see dot if I haf
declairet mine intention of begomming a citizen, it's all the same,
don't it?"

"By no means, for you seem to have no evidence of the DECLARATION; no
papers at all."

"Zo!" said Karl. Nevertheless, he pushed his small, rosy,
pickled-pig's-feet of fingers through his fleecy curls and beamed
pleasantly at the consul. "Dot's vot's der matter," he said, as if
taking a kindly interest in some private trouble of the consul's. "Dot's
vere you vos, eh?"

The consul looked steadily at him for a moment. Such stupidity was by
no means phenomenal, nor at all inconsistent with his appearance. "And,"
continued the consul gravely, "I must tell you that, unless you have
other proofs than you have shown, it will be my duty to give you up to
the authorities."

"Dot means I shall serve my time, eh?" said Karl, with an unchanged
smile.

"Exactly so," returned the consul.

"Zo!" said karl. "Dese town--dose Schlachtstadt--is fine town, eh? Fine
vomens. Goot men. Und beer und sausage. Blenty to eat and drink, eh?
Und," looking around the room, "you and te poys haf a gay times."

"Yes," said the consul shortly, turning away. But he presently faced
round again on the unfettered Karl, who was evidently indulging in a
gormandizing reverie.

"What on earth brought you here, anyway?"

"Was it das?"

"What brought you here from America, or wherever you ran away from?"

"To see der, volks."

"But you are an ORPHAN, you know, and you have no folks living here."

"But all Shermany is mine volks,--de whole gountry, don't it? Pet your
poots! How's dot, eh?"

The consul turned back to his desk and wrote a short note to General
Adlerkreutz in his own American German. He did not think it his duty
in the present case to interfere with the authorities or to offer his
parole for Karl Schwartz. But he would claim that, as the offender
was evidently an innocent emigrant and still young, any punishment or
military degradation be omitted, and he be allowed to take his place
like any other recruit in the ranks. If he might have the temerity to
the undoubted, far-seeing military authority of suggestion making here,
he would suggest that Karl was for the commissariat fitted! Of course,
he still retained the right, on production of satisfactory proof, his
discharge to claim.

The consul read this aloud to Karl. The cherubic youth smiled and said,
"Zo!" Then, extending his hand, he added the word "Zshake!"

The consul shook his hand a little remorsefully, and, preceding him to
the outer room, resigned him with the note into the inspector's hands. A
universal sigh went up from the girls, and glances of appeal sought the
consul; but he wisely concluded that it would be well, for a while, that
Karl--a helpless orphan--should be under some sort of discipline! And
the securer business of certifying invoices recommenced.

Late that afternoon he received a folded bit of blue paper from the
waistbelt of an orderly, which contained in English characters and as
a single word "Alright," followed by certain jagged pen-marks, which he
recognized as Adlerkreutz's signature. But it was not until a week later
that he learned anything definite. He was returning one night to his
lodgings in the residential part of the city, and, in opening the door
with his pass-key, perceived in the rear of the hall his handmaiden
Trudschen, attended by the usual blue or yellow or red shadow. He was
passing by them with the local 'n' Abend! on his lips when the soldier
turned his face and saluted. The consul stopped. It was the cherub Karl
in uniform!

But it had not subdued a single one of his characteristics. His hair
had been cropped a little more closely under his cap, but there was its
color and woolliness still intact; his plump figure was girt by belt and
buttons, but he only looked the more unreal, and more like a combination
of pen-wiper and pincushion, until his puffy breast and shoulders seemed
to offer a positive invitation to any one who had picked up a pin. But,
wonderful!--according to his brief story--he had been so proficient
in the goose step that he had been put in uniform already, and allowed
certain small privileges,--among them, evidently the present one.
The consul smiled and passed on. But it seemed strange to him that
Trudschen, who was a tall strapping girl, exceedingly popular with
the military, and who had never looked lower than a corporal at least,
should accept the attentions of an Einjahriger like that. Later he
interrogated her.

Ach! it was only Unser Karl! And the consul knew he was Amerikanisch!

"Indeed!"

"Yes! It was such a tearful story!"

"Tell me what it is," said the consul, with a faint hope that Karl had
volunteered some communication of his past.

"Ach Gott! There in America he was a man, and could 'vote,' make laws,
and, God willing, become a town councilor,--or Ober Intendant,--and
here he was nothing but a soldier for years. And this America was a
fine country. Wunderschon? There were such big cities, and one
'Booflo'--could hold all Schlachtstadt, and had of people five hundred
thousand!"

The consul sighed. Karl had evidently not yet got off the line of the
New York Central and Erie roads. "But does he remember yet what he did
with his papers?" said the consul persuasively.

"Ach! What does he want with PAPERS when he could make the laws? They
were dumb, stupid things--these papers--to him."

"But his appetite remains good, I hope?" suggested the consul.

This closed the conversation, although Karl came on many other nights,
and his toy figure quite supplanted the tall corporal of hussars in the
remote shadows of the hall. One night, however, the consul returned home
from a visit to a neighboring town a day earlier than he was expected.
As he neared his house he was a little surprised to find the windows of
his sitting-room lit up, and that there were no signs of Trudschen in
the lower hall or passages. He made his way upstairs in the dark and
pushed open the door of his apartment. To his astonishment, Karl was
sitting comfortably in his own chair, his cap off before a student-lamp
on the table, deeply engaged in apparent study. So profound was his
abstraction that it was a moment before he looked up, and the consul had
a good look at his usually beaming and responsive face, which, however,
now struck him as wearing a singular air of thought and concentration.
When their eyes at last met, he rose instantly and saluted, and
his beaming smile returned. But, either from his natural phlegm or
extraordinary self-control he betrayed neither embarrassment nor alarm.

The explanation he gave was direct and simple. Trudschen had gone out
with the Corporal Fritz for a short walk, and had asked him to "keep
house" during their absence. He had no books, no papers, nothing to read
in the barracks, and no chance to improve his mind. He thought the Herr
Consul would not object to his looking at his books. The consul was
touched; it was really a trivial indiscretion and as much Trudschen's
fault as Karl's! And if the poor fellow had any mind to improve,--his
recent attitude certainly suggested thought and reflection,--the consul
were a brute to reprove him. He smiled pleasantly as Karl returned a
stubby bit of pencil and some greasy memoranda to his breast pocket, and
glanced at the table. But to his surprise it was a large map that Karl
had been studying, and, to his still greater surprise, a map of the
consul's own district.

"You seem to be fond of map-studying," said the consul pleasantly. "You
are not thinking of emigrating again?"

"Ach, no!" said Karl simply; "it is my cousine vot haf lif near here. I
find her."

But he left on Trudschen's return, and the consul was surprised to
see that, while Karl's attitude towards her had not changed, the girl
exhibited less effusiveness than before. Believing it to be partly
the effect of the return of the corporal, the consul taxed her with
faithlessness. But Trudschen looked grave.

"Ah! He has new friends, this Karl of ours. He cares no more for poor
girls like us. When fine ladies like the old Frau von Wimpfel make much
of him, what will you?"

It appeared, indeed, from Trudschen's account, that the widow of a
wealthy shopkeeper had made a kind of protege of the young soldier,
and given him presents. Furthermore, that the wife of his colonel had
employed him to act as page or attendant at an afternoon Gesellschaft,
and that since then the wives of other officers had sought him. Did not
the Herr Consul think it was dreadful that this American, who could vote
and make laws, should be subjected to such things?

The consul did not know what to think. It seemed to him, however, that
Karl was "getting on," and that he was not in need of his assistance.
It was in the expectation of hearing more about him, however, that
he cheerfully accepted an invitation from Adlerkreutz to dine at the
Caserne one evening with the staff. Here he found, somewhat to his
embarrassment, that the dinner was partly in his own honor, and at the
close of five courses, and the emptying of many bottles, his health was
proposed by the gallant veteran Adlerkreutz in a neat address of many
syllables containing all the parts of speech and a single verb. It was
to the effect that in his soul-friend the Herr Consul and himself was
the never-to-be-severed union of Germania and Columbia, and in their
perfect understanding was the war-defying alliance of two great nations,
and that in the consul's noble restoration of Unser Karl to the German
army there was the astute diplomacy of a great mind. He was satisfied
that himself and the Herr Consul still united in the great future,
looking down upon a common brotherhood,--the great Germanic-American
Confederation,--would feel satisfied with themselves and each other
and their never-to-be-forgotten earth-labors. Cries of "Hoch! Hoch!"
resounded through the apartment with the grinding roll of heavy-bottomed
beer-glasses, and the consul, tremulous with emotion and a reserve verb
in his pocket, rose to reply. Fully embarked upon this perilous voyage,
and steering wide and clear of any treacherous shore of intelligence or
fancied harbor of understanding and rest, he kept boldly out at sea. He
said that, while his loving adversary in this battle of compliment had
disarmed him and left him no words to reply to his generous panegyric,
he could not but join with that gallant soldier in his heartfelt
aspirations for the peaceful alliance of both countries. But while he
fully reciprocated all his host's broader and higher sentiments, he must
point out to this gallant assembly, this glorious brotherhood, that
even a greater tie of sympathy knitted him to the general,--the tie of
kinship! For while it was well known to the present company that their
gallant commander had married an Englishwoman, he, the consul, although
always an American, would now for the first time confess to them that he
HIMSELF was of Dutch descent on his mother's side! He would say no more,
but confidently leave them in possession of the tremendous significance
of this until-then-unknown fact! He sat down, with the forgotten verb
still in his pocket, but the applause that followed this perfectly
conclusive, satisfying, and logical climax convinced him of his success.
His hand was grasped eagerly by successive warriors; the general turned
and embraced him before the breathless assembly; there were tears in the
consul's eyes.

As the festivities progressed, however, he found to his surprise that
Karl had not only become the fashion as a military page, but that his
naive stupidity and sublime simplicity was the wondering theme and
inexhaustible delight of the whole barracks. Stories were told of his
genius for blundering which rivaled Handy Andy's; old stories of fatuous
ignorance were rearranged and fitted to "our Karl." It was "our Karl"
who, on receiving a tip of two marks from the hands of a young lady to
whom he had brought the bouquet of a gallant lieutenant, exhibited some
hesitation, and finally said, "Yes, but, gnadiges Fraulein, that COST us
nine marks!" It was "our Karl" who, interrupting the regrets of another
lady that she was unable to accept his master's invitation, said
politely, "Ah! what matter, Gnadigste? I have still a letter for
Fraulein Kopp [her rival], and I was told that I must not invite you
both." It was "our Karl" who astonished the hostess to whom he was sent
at the last moment with apologies from an officer, unexpectedly detained
at barrack duty, by suggesting that he should bring that unfortunate
officer his dinner from the just served table. Nor were these charming
infelicities confined to his social and domestic service. Although
ready, mechanical, and invariably docile in the manual and physical
duties of a soldier,--which endeared him to the German drill-master,--he
was still invincibly ignorant as to its purport, or even the meaning
and structure of the military instruments he handled or vacantly
looked upon. It was "our Karl" who suggested to his instructors that in
field-firing it was quicker and easier to load his musket to the
muzzle at once, and get rid of its death-dealing contents at a single
discharge, than to load and fire consecutively. It was "our Karl" who
nearly killed the instructor at sentry drill by adhering to the letter
of his instructions when that instructor had forgotten the password.
It was the same Karl who, severely admonished for his recklessness, the
next time added to his challenge the precaution, "Unless you instantly
say 'Fatherland' I'll fire!" Yet his perfect good humor and childlike
curiosity were unmistakable throughout, and incited his comrades and
his superiors to show him everything in the hope of getting some
characteristic comment from him. Everything and everybody were open to
Karl and his good-humored simplicity.