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STORIES IN LIGHT AND SHADOW
STORIES IN LIGHT AND SHADOW BRET HARTE "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
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