The Progressionists, and Angela. Part 7

"Stop your whining. Pay up, money alone has any value in my estimation--pay, all the rest is fudge. Pay up!"

"G.o.d knows, Mr. Shund," sobbed the woman, wringing her hands, "I would give my heart's blood to keep my poor children out of misery--with my life I would be willing to pay you. Oh! do have some commiseration, do be merciful! Almighty G.o.d will requite you for it."

"Almighty G.o.d, nonsense! Don't mention such stuff to me. Stupid palaver like that might go down with some bigoted fool, but it will not affect a man of enlightenment. Pay up, and there's an end of it!"

"Is it your determination then, Mr. Shund, to cast us out mercilessly under the open sky?" inquired the countryman with deep earnestness.

"I only want what belongs to me. Pay over the thousand florins with the interest, and we shall be quits. That's my position, you may go."

In feeling words the woman once more appealed to Hans Shund. He remained indifferent to her pleading, and smiled scornfully whenever she adduced religious considerations to support her pet.i.tion. Suddenly Holt took her by the arm and drew her towards the door.

"Say no more, wife, say no more, but come away. You could more easily soften stones than a man who has no conscience and does not believe in G.o.d."

"There you have spoken the truth," sneered Shund.

"You sneer, Mr. Shund," and the man's eyes glared. "Do you know to whom you owe it that your head is not broken?"

"What sort of language is that?"

"It is the language of a father driven to despair. I tell you"--and the countryman raised his clenched fists--"it is to the good G.o.d that you are indebted for your life; for, if I believed as little in an almighty and just G.o.d as you, with this pair of strong hands I would wring your neck. Yes, stare at me! With these hands I would strangle Shund, who has brought want upon my children and misery upon me. Come away, wife, come away. He is resolved to reduce us to beggary as he has done to so many others. Do your worst, Mr. Shund, but there above we shall have a reckoning with each other."

He dragged his wife out of the room, and went away without saluting, but casting a terrible scowl back upon Hans Shund.

For a long while the usurer sat thoughtfully, impressed by the ominous scowl and threat, which were not empty ones, for rage and despair swept like a rack over the man's countenance. Mr. Shund felt distinctly that but for the G.o.d of Christians he would have been murdered by the infuriated man. He discovered, moreover, that religious belief is to be recommended as a safeguard against the fury of the mob. On the other hand, he found this belief repugnant to a usurer's conscience and a hindrance to the free enjoyment of life. Hans Shund thus sat making reflections on religion, and endeavoring to drown the echo which Holt's summons before the supreme tribunal had awakened in a secret recess of his soul, when hasty steps resounded from the front yard and the door was suddenly burst open. Hans' agent rushed in breathless, sank upon the nearest chair, and, opening his mouth widely, gasped for breath.

"What is the matter, Braun?" inquired Shund in surprise. "What has happened?"

Braun flung his arms about, rolled his eyes wildly, and labored to get breath, like a person that is being smothered.

"Get your breath, you fool!" growled the usurer. "What business had you running like a maniac? Something very extraordinary must be the matter, is it not?"

Braun a.s.sented with violent nodding.

"Anything terrible?" asked he further.

More nodding from Braun. The usurer began to feel uneasy. Many a nefarious deed stuck to his hands, but not one that had not been committed with all possible caution and secured against any afterclaps of the law. Yet might he not for once have been off his guard? "What has been detected? Speak!" urged the conscience-stricken villain anxiously.

"Mr. Shund, you are to be--in this place--"

"Arrested?" suggested the other, appalled, as the agent's breath failed him again.

"No--mayor!"

Shund straightened himself, and raised his hands to feel his ears.

"I am surely in possession of my hearing! Are you gone mad, fellow?"

"Mr. Shund, you are to be mayor and member of the legislature. It is a settled fact!"

"Indeed, 'tis quite a settled fact that you have lost your wits. It is a pity, poor devil! You once were useful, now you are insane; quite a loss for me! Where am I to get another bloodhound as good as you? Your scent was keen, you drove many a nice bit of game into my nets. Hem--so many instances of insanity in these enlightened times of ours are really something peculiar. Braun, dearest Braun, have you really lost your mind entirely? Completely deranged?"

"I am not insane, Mr. Shund. I have been a.s.sured from various sources that you are to be elected mayor and delegate to the legislative a.s.sembly."

"Well, then, various persons have been running a rig upon you."

"Running a rig upon me, Mr. Shund? Bamboozle me--me who understand and have practised bamboozling others for so long?"

"Still, I maintain that people have been playing off a hoax on you--and what an outrageous hoax it is, too!

"I believe a hoax? Just listen to me. I have never been more clearheaded than I am to-day. Acquaintances and strangers in different quarters of the town have a.s.sured me that it is a fixed fact that you are to be mayor of this city and member of the legislative a.s.sembly.

Now, were it a hoax, would you not have to presuppose that both acquaintances and strangers conspired to make a fool of me? Yet such a supposition is most improbable."

"Your reasoning is correct, Braun. Still, such a conspiracy must really have been gotten up. _I_ mayor of this city? _I_? Reflect for an instant, Braun. You know what an enviable reputation I bear throughout the city. Many persons would go a hundred paces out of their direction to avoid me, specially they who owe or have owed me anything. Moreover, who appoints the mayor? The men who give the keynote, the leaders of the town. Now, these men would consider themselves defiled by the slightest contact with the outlawed usurer--which, of course, is very unjust and inconsistent on the part of those gentlemen--for my views are the same as theirs."

"Spite of all that, I put faith in the report, Mr. Shund. Schwefel's bookkeeper also, when I met him, smiled significantly, and even raised his hat."

"Hold on, Braun, hold! The deuce--it just now occurs to me--you might not be so much mistaken after all. Strange things have happened to me also. Gentlemen who are intimate with our city magnates have saluted me and nodded to me quite confidentially; I was unable to solve this riddle, now it's clear. Braun, you are right, your information is perfectly true." And Mr. Shund rubbed his hands.

"Don't forget, Mr. Shund, that I first brought you the astounding intelligence, the joyful tidings, the information on which the very best sort of speculations may be based."

"You shall be recompensed, Braun! Go over to the sign of the Bear, and drink a bottle of the best, and I will pay for it."

"At a thaler a bottle?"

"That quality isn't good for the health, my dear fellow! You may drink a bottle at forty-eight kreutzers on my credit. But no--I don't wish to occasion you an injury, nor do I wish to see you disgraced. You shall not acquire the name of a toper in my employ. You may therefore call for a pint gla.s.s at twelve kreutzers a gla.s.s. Go, now, and leave me to myself."

When the agent was gone, Hans Shund rushed about the room as if out of his mind.

"Don't tell me that miracles no longer occur!" cried he. "_I_, the discharged treasurer--_I_, the thief, usurer, and profligate, at the mere sight of whom every young miss and respectable lady turn up their noses a thousand paces off--_I_ am chosen to be mayor and a.s.semblyman!

How has this come to pa.s.s? Where lie the secret springs of this astonis.h.i.+ng event?" And he laid his finger against his nose in a brown study. "Here it is--yes, here! The thinkers of progress have at length discovered that a man who from small beginnings has risen to an independent fortune, whose shrewdness and energy have ama.s.sed enormous sums, ought to be placed at the head of the city administration in order to convert the tide of public debt into a tide of prosperity.

Yes, herein lies the secret. Nor are the gentlemen entirely mistaken.

There are ways and means of making plus out of minus, of converting stones into money. But the gentlemen have taken the liberty of disposing of me without my previous knowledge and consent. I have not even been asked. Quite natural, of course. Who asks a dog for permission to stroke him? This is, I own, an unpleasant aftertaste.

Hem, suppose I were too proud to accept, suppose I wanted to bestow my abilities and energies on my own personal interests. Come, now, old Hans, don't be sensitive! Pride, self-respect, character, sense of honor, and such things are valuable only when they bring emolument.

Now, the mayor of a great city has it in his power to direct many a measure eminently to his own interest."

Another knock was heard at the door, and the usurer, taken by surprise, saw before him the leader Erdblatt.

"Have you been informed of a fact that is very flattering to you?"

began the tobacco manufacturer.

"Not the slightest intimation of a fact of that nature has reached me,"

answered Shund with reserve.

"Then I am very happy to be the first to give you the news," a.s.sured Erdblatt. "It has been decided to promote you at the next election to the office of mayor and of delegate to the legislative a.s.sembly."

A malignant smile flitted athwart Shund's face. He shook his sandy head in feigned astonishment, and fixed upon the other a look that was the next thing to a sneer.

"There are almost as many marvels in your announcement as words. You speak of a decision and of a fact which, however, without my humble co-operation, are hardly practicable. I thought all along that the disposition of my person belonged to myself. How could anything be resolved upon or become a fact in which I myself happen to have the casting vote?"