Read Ebook: My Life by Flynt Josiah Symons Arthur Author Of Introduction Etc

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Ebook has 634 lines and 70764 words, and 13 pages

"How about them now?" he questioned, after throwing away the blackened cloth. It would have paid to tell him that they were better if only to keep him from going at them again.

"Oh, but my lame back!" I replied, glad to shift the doctor's attention in that direction. The worst he could do to my back was to put a plaster on it, I reasoned, and this would almost certainly relieve me of one watch at least.

"Don't stoop so much," was all he would recommend. "What else?"

"Well, Doctor," I pursued, "I'm sick, sick all over. I need at least one watch to rest up in."

The good man became facetious.

"Why, we're all sick," he laughed. "The captain, the first officer, the cook, and what not. We're terribly short-handed. If you don't keep your watches the ship simply won't go, and heaven knows when we'll see Bremerhaven."

The twelfth day out, I think it was, we "made" Bremerhaven, where the good ship was to have a rest, and the men who had shipped in Hoboken were to be paid off. The long voyage was over, I had finished my last "watch" below, and was free to mingle with the steerage passengers on deck and view the new country I had traveled so far to see. My clothes were the same that I had gone on board with in Hoboken--a fairly respectable outfit then, but now sadly in need of cleaning and repair. My face and hands were dark and grimy, although they had been given numberless washings; it was simply impossible to get all of the coal dust out of them. Indeed, it was days before my hands looked normal again.

The head fireman saw me on the deck, and came up to me. His whole manner had changed. His duty was over, the great ship was in the harbor, and he could afford to unbend a little.

"Not dressed yet to go ashore?" he said in a friendly manner, his eyes running hurriedly over my clothes. "We'll dock soon, and you want to be ready."

"These are all the shore clothes or any other kind that I've got," I replied, and for aught I could see just then they were all that I was going to have for some time to come.

"I'm too big, or you could have some of mine," the fireman assured me, the obvious sincerity of his offer making me quite forget the "swat" he had given me in the fire-room. We shook hands, congratulated each other on having done his part to help bring the ship into port, and then separated, five minutes and a kindly manner on the part of the fireman having been quite sufficient to scatter forever, I trust, all the murderous thoughts of revenge I had been a week and more storing up against him. Such has been the fate of nearly all of my revengeful intentions in life. Either they have consumed themselves with their own intense warmth, or a few words of reconciliation have cooled them down until they have become flabby and useless.

The journey to Berlin was a sorry undertaking. I started tired, my ticket read fourth-class, there were several confusing changes, and, for most of the journey, I was wedged in among a crowd of burly and scented Poles. Ordinarily, on a respectable train and with a third-class ticket, the journey from Bremen is about six hours. On my train it took close to sixteen, if not eighteen hours. A more humble home-coming could hardly be imagined, and I wasted no mental efforts in trying to increase the humility by imagining anything. At Celli there was some diversion in waiting an hour or two, and in listening to the gabble of a little Jewish tramp bound for N?rnberg. He had just come from America, he claimed, by way of England, having been boosted out of that country and across the North Sea by some alleged philanthropic agency, anxious apparently to relieve Great Britain of anything likely to increase the income tax. He was traveling afoot, and was full of the usual list of turnpike ghost-stories and "hand-outs." I told him some of my story to explain why I looked so dirty.

"They won't let you into Berlin," he declared, "looking like that. Can't you clean up some?" I tried once again, at a pump, to get rid of the steamer dust and grime, but this effort left no marked improvement in my appearance. Pretty soon the time for my train drew near, and then the little wanderer displayed himself in his true colors.

My arrival in Berlin at one o'clock in the morning, dirty, clothes frayed and torn, and my exchequer so low that I could not afford even a "groschen" for a street-car ride, was sorrier, if that be possible than had been the journey from Bremen. One thing I had carefully preserved, however, my mother's address. Asking and feeling my way, laughed at by night street hawks and workmen, and watched suspiciously by policemen, I finally found the house. It was two o'clock in the morning now.

"Well, I'll go up with you and see what the madame says," he finally declared, and up we marched, the good man looking at me furtively under his brows every now and then, evidently wondering whether or not he was making an awful mistake. My mother answered our ring.

"Who is there?" she asked in German, accustomed to the nocturnal calls of the telegraph messengers. I forgot my grammar, my looks, everything in fact except that on the other side of that door was one human being most likely to give me a night's lodging and to forgive.

UNTER DEN LINDEN

Part of the street roar and clamor is due to the unusual amount of small traffic in the streets, to the thousands and thousands of cabs, "commercial" tricycles and pushbarrows, all of which claim the right to play their part in the city's roar and bustle. But a much more conspicuous cause, if not the main one, is the fact that Berlin has grown up to Welt-Stadt prominence, overnight, as it were, and the good Berliners have not yet untangled their feet sufficiently to keep an orderly pace under the new order of things. Two-thirds of them are still living under the old horse-car r?gime, and when they come to congested corners, where the trolley's clang and the automobile's "toff-toff" prevail, they very willingly lend a hand in increasing the general confusion.

At least this is the way the town impressed me a year or two ago, as compared with the easy-going city I first entered as a coal-passer, with honorable discharge papers in my pocket, and very little else. But far be it from me to dwell on this subject, for if there is any city in the world to which I ought to be grateful, it is Berlin. If it pleases the Berliners to shout their World City distinction from the housetops, as if fearful that it might otherwise escape notice, well and good; the noise sounds funny, that is all--particularly after London and New York.

I began my career in the town in a very "Dutch" ready-made suit of clothes, high-heeled shoes that could be pulled on at one tug like the "Romeo" slipper, a ready-made fly-necktie, and a hat the style of which may be seen at its best in this country in the neighborhood of Ellis Island; it was local color hatified indeed. While I lay asleep on the sofa in my mother's library, making up for the loss of sleep at sea, my mother went out and kindly made these purchases. Washed, dressed and fed, I may have looked "Dutch," but I was clean at least, and there was no dusky fireman about to order me to hurry "further mit de coals."

The family physician, a gentleman who has since come on to great things and is one of Berlin's most famous medical men, for some reason best known to himself examined me carefully to see how I had stood the journey. All that he could find out of the way was a considerably quickened heart action, which did not give him great concern, however. At that time the good man was just beginning to pick up English, and at our first meeting made me listen to his rendering of "Early to bed, early to rise," etc. A few weeks later, when making a professional visit on an American young lady, a new neighbor of ours, he was emboldened to give some advice in English--to compose an original sentence. He wanted the young lady to take more exercise, and this is how he told her to get it.

"Traw a teep inspiration, take t'ree pig shteeps across te floor, and ten expire." She pulled through her ailment splendidly.

Nearly all American colonies abroad are but little more than camps. The campers tarry a while, for one reason or another--culture is what most of them claim to be seeking--and then fold their tents and pass on, those who remain behind having to get acquainted afresh with the new set of "culturists" who are sure to arrive in due time. In Venice there is an Anglo-Saxon camp which lays claim to ancient privileges and rights. In 1894-95 I spent four unforgettable months in the place, and got well acquainted with many of the campers.

"And how long have you been here?" was one of my questions on meeting an Englishman or fellow countryman, already beginning to plume myself on my long residence.

"Eighteen years, thank you!" was the answer I got on numerous occasions. My four months' sojourn dwindled to a very slight significance when set over against the old residents' record, but in spite of their long stay in the city they were, after all, campers. When the Christmas holiday time came, for instance, they all spoke of going "home" to England. Venice was not their home. It was simply a desirable abiding place for the time being.

So it is wherever I have lived on the Continent. Barring a very few exceptions, the American colonists are transient residents that you have barely got acquainted with before they are off to some new tenting ground. Whether such "colossal" life is advantageous for the rearing of children, or not, is a question which each camping family decides for itself. In the case of young men, students for example, it has its advantages and disadvantages. In my own case I think it worked well for a time. It was not compulsory; I could have returned to America at any time. And it afforded me an opportunity to see how clean I could keep my record sheet in a community unacquainted with my previous devilishness. There was no local reason whatever why I should not hold my head just as high as anybody--a privilege which, I believe, goes a long way in explaining the pride I took in trying to deserve such a right.

It was evidently decided that I should at least try my hand in Liverpool, and sufficient money for the trip and more was given to me. I left Berlin, thinking that I ought to come back at least an admiral of The Fleet, my mother feeling quite hopeful about me, yet regretting that I was not then willing to sound Berlin a little more, and see whether I could not fit in there.

As no particular harm came to me from the Liverpool experiment, perhaps it is not to be regretted to-day, but it seemed to accomplish very little at the time. I lodged in the Sailor's Home and tried to act and talk like a master of a ship, as long as my money lasted, but this was as far as I got toward becoming an admiral or in the direction of Egypt. The only "berth" offered me was in a Norwegian schooner as "cook's mate," or something like that, whatever "that" may mean. Liverpool itself, however, or rather those sections of it near the Sailors' Home and Lime Street, was faithfully explored and studied. One experience that I had may or may not have been worth while, according to the different views of it that are permissible; but I thought, at the time, that it was valuable.

A runaway girl from Manchester, a pretty little thing who had lost her head over the theater, music halls and the ballet, crossed my path. She told me her story, a stencil-plate affair such as England is full of, and I told her mine, also about Egypt and my determination to be an admiral, if possible. She suggested that we combine our stories and funds, and grow rich and famous together. She was sure that she was fated to be an actress, a great one, and I was equally sure that something illustrious awaited me. "Alice"--this was the fair one's name--arranged the combination of funds very neatly; fortunately the bulk of mine were in safe keeping in the Sailor's Home. The whole amount, or rather the amount that I let her have, went for the cultivation of her voice and "stoil" in Lime Street concert halls; but she explained this selfishness away with a promise to finance me when she should be successful and I was passing the final examinations for the admiral's position. It is not unlikely that I might yet be struggling to get money for "Alice's" musical education if her charms had continued to please, but she fainted, or pretended to, in my arms, in public fashion one evening near the Home, and the spell was broken then and there. The fainting took place in an alleyway through which people passed to the rear of the Home and then on to another street. It came so unexpectedly that in spite of the girl's slight form she nearly toppled me over in clutching at me. Some newsboys saw me holding her up and fanning her face with my hat. A squad of policemen, going on night duty, passed by and snickered.

"I'd doi for that goil, I would," one of the boys screamed, and the others made similar teasing remarks. "Alice" gradually recovered and grabbed my neck.

"Save me!" she cried. "Save me! I'm losin' all me high notes."

I "saved" her in double-quick fashion into a cab and sent her home to look for the high notes. I never saw her again, but five years later, when a friend and I were tramping in England, I asked about her in the concert halls in Lime Street, and finally found an old acquaintance who remembered her.

"Oh, that girl!" the acquaintance exclaimed. "She's got seven days. She's dotty. Thinks she's a primer donner. Good thing you an' her never went to housekeeping--ain't it?"

What with my experience with the capricious "Jeminy" of earlier days and with the screeching "Alice," housekeeping has not entered heavily into my life. I must thank "Alice," however, for showing me the folly of trying to be an admiral on a mere coal-passer's experience. Her light-fingered ingenuity and the resulting depletion of my funds also assisted in curing me of the Egyptian fever. The upshot of the trip to England was a hasty return to Germany to try something else--and to celebrate my coming of age. I meant that that event should mark a distinct change in my life, and in many ways it did.

BERLIN UNIVERSITY

On my return from England I was determined to let her suggest what was best for me to do, having made such a fiasco of the English venture, a suggestion and enterprise of my own. The university and its professors loomed up large in my mother's eyes. If she could only see me once started on such a career, she said, she thought that her cup of happiness would be full, indeed. She was set on having at least one academic child in the family, and my presence in Berlin and willingness to behave, renewed her hopes that this ambition was to be realized. Fortunate it was for her ambition and my sensibilities that the matriculation ceremonies were so simple. My German at the time had been selected principally from the coal-passers' vocabulary, but I was quick in overhauling it, and when ready to matriculate, knew as much of the language probably as does the average American student on first entering the university. On receiving my matriculation certificate from the rector--a very formidable document it was, written in Latin, which I had long since forgotten--shaking hands with him and receiving the faculty's welcome into the institution, I asked that my faulty German be pardoned.

"Certainly, Herr Studiosus, certainly," the rector assured me. "You are here to learn; we all are. So excuses are not necessary."

This was all the formality that was attached to the entrance ceremony. In five minutes, thanks to the rector, I had changed from a quondam coal passer to a would-be Doctor of Philosophy in the great Friedrich Wilhelm Universitat, a royal institution. The importance of the royal protectorate over the university and the students never impressed me greatly, until a friend of mine had a wordy difference with one of the officials at the Royal Library. My friend was lame, having to use crutches. One day, when entering the room where borrowed books are returned, he proceeded to the desk with his hat on, being unable to remove it until freed of his armful of books. The officious clerk called his attention to the excusable breach of etiquette in none too polite language, adding: "You must remember that I am an Imperial official." "And do you remember," demanded my doughty Greek friend, "that I am an Imperial student."

I never had occasion to call attention to my "Imperialism" while in the university, but it was a kind of little joke that I was already to play if opportunity offered.

The significance of the title was by no means clear to me on matriculating in Berlin. In an indefinite sort of way I knew that it stood for certain learned acquirements, but what these amounted to puzzled me much at the time, and they do yet. Occasionally some visiting clergyman would preach for our local pastor in the American church, and I noticed that when a Ph. D. was a part of his title it was thought extremely good form to pay extra attention to his discourse.

The insinuating suggestion at the last piqued me somewhat, but I continued to listen to Professor Schmoller for another long semester.

The most interesting interview that I had with any of my professors was with Virchow. At the time of the interview I was corresponding for a New York newspaper intermittently, and, one day, word came from the editor that a "chat" with Virchow on the political situation would be "available." Virchow kindly granted me an interview and told me some interesting things about his fight for Liberal ideas. But he was most entertaining when talking "science." Our political chat finished, he asked me whether I was interested in Anthropology, advising me that the local Anthropological Society was to have a meeting that same evening, and that I would be welcome. I told him that I was interested in Anthropology in so far as it threw light on Criminology. The old gentleman must have mistaken my meaning, or I did not know myself what I was trying to say, for my reply startled him into what seemed to me unwonted nervous activity. During the political chat he had been very quiet and calm, talking even about Bismarck in a rather subdued voice. But when I ventured to connect Anthropology and Criminology, barely mentioning Lombroso's name, it was as if some one had thrown a stone through the window. Virchow jumped up from his chair, and cried: "There you are on false ground. Let me give you a pamphlet of mine that will put you right," and he rushed into his adjoining study for a paper that had something to do with cells, etc. I might understand it to-day, but it read like Sanscrit at the time. "There," said the little man, handing me the brochure. "That will give you my ideas on that subject." In other men this proceeding might have indicated conceit. With Virchow it was merely a friendly desire to set me right on a matter which he had thought a million times more about than I possibly could have. He seemed literally to feel aggrieved that anyone should be in the dark about a matter on which he had tried to shed light.

Later, when showing him a written copy of our political interview, I had to look him up in his famous den, in the Pathological Institute, I think it was. The room was so full of skulls, bones and "pickled" things that it was all one could do not to knock something over when moving about. I had to leave the manuscript with him for correction. He sent it to me a few days afterward with neatly written marginal notes in his own handwriting. Of all the men I met at the university, he was distinctly the most famous and affable.

His famous political antagonist, Bismarck, a man that Virchow seemed to hate, judging by his manner when discussing him, I saw but once. It was not long before his dismissal from office, and he was returning from the Emperor's palace, where he had gone to give him birthday congratulations. I was standing in front of the Caf? Bauer on the Unter den Linden just as Bismarck's carriage came by. I shall always remember his strong face and remarkable big eyes, but this was about all that I saw. A woman recognized Bismarck just as I did, and ran toward his carriage, crying: "Oh, Prince Bismarck! Prince Bismarck!" There was something in her manner which made one think that she wanted to ask some favor of the great man, and had been waiting for his appearance. The mournful note in her voice might have meant anything--a son in prison, a dying soldier husband, a mere request for bread. The driver of the horses was taking no chances, however, and the great chancellor was whisked away toward Wilhelm Strasse.

I believe that Spicer, my fox-terrier, is the only other member of the class that has quit the game completely. She stayed with my family for nine years, never comprehending the Germans as a people--she was English--and apparently never wanting to. Pilsner beer was the only German product she would succumb to. Three saucerfuls after each afternoon tramp constituted her portion. As she never staggered, and never misbehaved herself otherwise under the Pilsner influence, I think it agreed with her. In saying that she succumbed to the three saucerfuls, I merely mean that she knew when she had had enough.

If I could tell what "Pizey," as she was called later, meant to my family in ways that are dear and affectionate, and what she stood for in the "Colony," a great dog book would be the result. She came to us in a basket, after a serious tossing in the North Sea--a fat, pudgy little thing, full of John Bullism and herself. My mother and younger sister brought her to Berlin, and mother presented her to me, in the same language as in former days when she had given me "Major"--"Josiah, I've brought you a dog!" I rejoiced at twenty-two over such a gift as much as I did in my early teens. Little did I reckon then what it means to train a pup in a Berlin flat. With "Pizey" I would gladly go through the whole business again, but it is a task I feel that I must save my countrymen against. Even in Oskaloosa there are trying months ahead of him who rears a pup three flights up.

"Pizey's" death was mysterious. I had long since left Berlin, and heard only infrequently about her. Finally the entire family moved away, and the dog was left in the old home, but under a new r?gime; she absolutely refused to emigrate. They say that she was stricken with asthma, and had to be put out of the way. I only hope that she was put out of the way in a square deal. The German scientists are very much given to dissecting dogs like "Pizey" while they are yet alive. If any German scientist perpetrated such an outrage on Spicer, I trust that his science will fall to pieces--certainly those parts of it based on "Pizey's" evidence.

WANDERINGS IN GERMANY

My mother saw in him at first merely the typical Prohibitionist with a long rehearsal of the reasons why, if need be, one should go dry in a waterless, but alcoholic neighborhood. A partial rehearsal there was, and then the tall, blond man from "Minnesoty" got to talking most interestingly about the university, philosophy, religion, Norway--and Ibsen. He spoke also of his native language, of literature in general, and of men in "Minnesoty" who were trying to make a new Norwegian literature.

Ibsen was much discussed at the time, and "Nora" was the talk of the town. It had become almost an affair of state whether Nora did right in leaving her home, and decidedly a matter of etiquette whether a husband should, or should not, offer a disappearing wife an umbrella on a rainy night. Ibsen was living in Munich in those days.

The journey to Munich in company with the Norwegian was very similar to all students' outings, and need not be described in detail here. The talk with Ibsen, our unheard of abstemiousness in restaurants, and the pains that we were at to see everything on a five pfennig tipping basis, were the only special features of the trip.

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