Gottlieb

“ And when they had eaten their hasty Christmas feast, and the mother was smoothing his hair and making the best of his poor garments, Gottlieb said, looking up gravely in her face:
"Who knows, mother, if Hans is only a raven now, that the good God may not make him, his very self, the angel?"
"Perhaps God is making Hans into the angel even now," replied the mother. ”

“ So, between the chorus of praise and the other chorus of mockery, it was no wonder that poor Gottlieb felt like a being far removed from the common herd. And, necessarily, any one of the flock of Christ who feels that, cannot be happy, because if we are far away from the common flock, we cannot be near the Good Shepherd, who always keeps close to the feeblest, and seeks those that go astray. ”

“ Gottlieb made bad jokes, and laughed about the devil, and the other old fellow groaned and sighed, and talked of the devil, as if he sat at table with us every day, and eat his potatoes, like other honest people. Now, my little girls were quite perplexed; Mining attached herself to Gottlieb, and Lining to Rudolph, for now it was Rudolph who said Gottlieb did not occupy a Christian standpoint."
"Fie!" said Bräsig, "he should not have said that. And such a fellow as that cannot catch a good-sized perch!" ”

“ Gottlieb smoked on in sullen anger; his heart torn and tortured, and his mind filled with a confusion of bitter evil thoughts. And presently—for the devil is at every man's elbow, ready to take advantage of any sudden weakness, or turn to his own purposes any too great strength—these thoughts grew more evil and more clear: until they fairly resolved themselves into the determination to steal from Hans the recipe for making lebkuchen, and so to crush completely his rival and at the same time to make certain his own fortune and fame. ”

“ She learned all the book-lore that the good pastor chose to impart to the little maidens of the hamlet, and no hand was more skillful than hers with the knitting-needle and distaff. Thus she grew up, delicate and fair, with eyes as blue as summer skies, and long golden locks, hanging almost to her feet, for she was as tiny as a fairy in stature.
There came sometimes to the cottage of Father Gottlieb, a dark-browed man, whose towering form and heavily-built limbs gave him the semblance of some giant of the hills. ”

“ He concentrated on Leora, but his talk was of Martin:
"Your husband must be an Artist Healer, not a picker of trifles like these laboratory men."
"But Gottlieb's no picker of trifles," insisted Martin.
"No-o. But with him— It's a difference of one's gods. Gottlieb's gods are the cynics, the destroyers—crapehangers, the vulgar call 'em: Diderot and Voltaire and Elser; great men, wonder-workers, yet men that had more fun destroying other people's theories than creating their own. ”

“ Upon his vision beamed.
'Twas only a week till Christmas,
And Gottlieb knew that then
The Christ-child, who was born that day,
Sent down good gifts to men.
But he said, "He will never find us,
Our home is so mean and small.
And we, who have most need of them,
Will get no gifts at all." ”

“ Miriam came, and in a stiff, embarrassed manner Gottlieb presented her to his father. The girl looked in surprise at the venerable figure that stood before her—a picture of a patriarch from the Pentateuch, with a long, straggling beard, and ringlets of hair falling over the ears, and clad in the long gaberdine of the Russian Ghettos. And she saw a pair of grey eyes bent keenly upon her—eyes of shrewdness, but soft and tender as a woman’s—the eyes of a strong man with a kind heart. ”

“ Of course the devil did not plant the notion of theft in Gottlieb's mind in this bald fashion; for the devil is a most considerate person, and ever shows a courteous disposition to spare the feelings of those whom he would lead into sin. No: the temptation that he suggested was the subtle and ingenious one that Gottlieb should proceed to recover his own stolen property! His logic was admirable: Hans had been Gottlieb's assistant; and as such Gottlieb had owned him and his recipe as well. When Hans went away and took the recipe with him, he took that which still belonged to his master. ”

“ And as he went out, in his little white robe, with the choir, he felt the eyes of the people on him, and he heard a murmur of praise, and now and then words such as "That is little Gottlieb, the son of the widow Magdalis. She may well be proud of him. He has the voice and the face of an angel." ”

“ Possibly one reason why Gottlieb's storm was so violent was that he could not give any good reason for it. Hans really was a most estimable young man; he came of a good family; as a baker he was nothing short of a genius. All this Gottlieb knew, and all this he frequently had said to Aunt Hedwig and to Herr Sohnstein, and, worst of all, to Minna. ”

“ While medical quacks, manufacturers of patent medicines, chewing-gum salesmen, and high priests of advertising lived in large houses, attended by servants, and took their sacred persons abroad in limousines, Max Gottlieb dwelt in a cramped cottage whose paint was peeling, and rode to his laboratory on an ancient and squeaky bicycle. Gottlieb himself protested rarely. He was not so unreasonable—usually—as to demand both freedom and the fruits of popular slavery. "Why," he once said to Martin, "should the world pay me for doing what I want and what they do not want?" ”

“ The services of the day would soon begin, and Hans had set his heart on Gottlieb's singing that very day in the Cathedral.
The choir-master's eyes sparkled as he listened to the boy; but he was an austere man, and would not utter a word to make the child think himself of value.
"Not bad raw material," he said, "but very raw. I suppose thou hast never before sung a note to any one who understood music?" ”

“ Into this beautiful church it was that Gottlieb, led thither by his good angel, entered; and the devil—raging in the terrible but impotent fashion that is habitual with devils when they see slipping away from their snares the souls which they thought to win to wickedness—of course was forced to remain outside. ”

“ Martin has not yet reached such a stability of will that he can join Gottlieb in his single-hearted devotion; but through all his vacillations he keeps in the end Gottlieb's ideal for his own.
He has the good fortune, quite unmerited, to marry an enchanting girl, matter-of-fact, tender and passionate, who loves him with her whole nature and yet, as much for his sake as for hers, never allows her personality to be swamped by his. She is content always with his actions, because she retains so deep a faith in his final integrity ”

“ But Herr Sohnstein's face grew grave and his voice grew reverent as he answered: "It is not so, my Hedwig. We owe our happiness to the good God who has taken away the evil that was in our dear Gottlieb's heart." ”

“ After that, Gottlieb had no more trouble about the master. The old man's severity became comprehensible and dear to him, and a loving liberty and confidence came into his bearing toward him, which went to the heart of the childless old man, so that dearer than the praise of the archduchess, or even the discomfiture of the Cistercians, became to him the success and welfare of the child. ”

“ Gottlieb was very shrewd at devising schemes that came just within the law and used to amuse himself by so doing in his leisure moments. One of the best—the idea which he sold for three hundred dollars and which is still being used in New York, Chicago, and elsewhere—is the following:
An old man, with a square of plate glass in a newspaper and a bundle of glass-cutter's tools by his side is seen sitting dejectedly on a curb with his head in his hands. He has no coat and the icy wind blows through his straggling locks of gray hair—a pathetic picture. ”

“ A second time were his honey-pots sacrificed, that the coming into the world of the little Minna might be made smooth. This, also, was a willing sacrifice; though in his heart of hearts Gottlieb felt a twinge of regret that his first-born was not a son, to whom the fame and fortune incident to the making of perfect lebkuchen might descend. But he was a philosopher in his way, and did not suffer himself to be seriously disconcerted by an accident that by no means was irreparable. As he smoked his long pipe that night, while the bread was baking, he said to himself, cheerily: "It is a girl. ”

“ When he heard the voice, Gottlieb roused himself, and read; and it was written, “Watch and pray, lest ye enter into temptation; the spirit truly is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Then, for a little while, Gottlieb was warned, and he walked like one awake; but, after a time, such power had this sleepy air, he was again almost as drowsy as ever, and his eyes were nearly closed. Then, before Gehulfè could give him a second warning, he placed his foot in a hole, which he would have easily passed by, if he had been watching ”

“ Gottlieb went home and told his mother. And they both agreed, that if not an angel, the old man was as good as an angel, and was certainly a messenger of God.
To have been the master-builder of the cathedral of which it was Magdalis's glory and pride that her husband had carved a few of the stones! ”

“ Gottlieb asked, when they had somewhat disentangled themselves. "Thou wilt come and live with us, and be my partner, and together we will make the good lebkuchen once more. Is it not so?"
Hans found this a trying question. He looked at Herr Sohnstein, doubtfully. "Ah," said Herr Sohnstein, "thou meanest that a very hard-hearted, money-lending man has hired a shop for thee and has made it the most splendid bakery and the finest restaurant on all the East Side, eh? And thou art afraid that this man, this old miser man, will keep thee to thy bargainings, already?" ”

“ Ordinarily Encore would have suggested, with amiable malice, that Gottlieb was a "crapehanger" who wasted time destroying the theories of other men instead of making new ones of his own. But tonight, in detestation of such literary playboys as Brumfit, he exalted Gottlieb's long, lonely, failure-burdened effort to synthesize antitoxin, and his diabolic pleasure in disproving his own contentions as he would those of Ehrlich or Sir Almroth Wright. ”

“ Gottlieb, I'm very sorry, but the use of that disgusting language is not permitted in this house!"
He had almost recovered from the anxieties of Winnemac and the Hunziker factory; he had begun to expand, to entertain people—scientists, musicians, talkers. Now he was thrust back into himself. With Terry gone, he trusted only Miriam and Martin and Ross McGurk; and his deep-set wrinkle-lidded eyes looked ever on sadness. ”

“ After the affair of the broken peel there was a coolness between Gottlieb and the elder apprentice, which, increasing, led to a positive coldness, and then to a separation. And then it was that Fate put a large spoke in all the wheels which ran in the Café Nürnberg by bringing into Gottlieb's employment a ruddy young Nürnberger, lately come out of that ancient city to America, named Hans Kuhn.
It was not chance that led Hans to earn his living in a bakery when he came to New York. He was a born baker: a baker by choice, by force of natural genius, by hereditary right. ”

“ Gottlieb told me various things, and Frau Pastorin Lining helped him, for she was constantly interrupting; and when I rose, to go to Pumpelhagen,--for I had known Franz also, when I was apprenticed in the region,--Gottlieb said, "Yes, go! You will find them all together, there; we will come by and by, and bring our three children; the oldest is absent, he is already at the gymnasium." I went through the Gurlitz church-yard, thinking over what I had heard, and it was just what is always happening on this earth; joy and sorrow, birth and death. ”

“ Gottlieb walks through fire and water to the sound of flute and timpani.
Hinze
You have survived the ordeal; now, my prince, you have been found worthy to govern.
Gottlieb
Governing, Hinze, is a peculiar thing. ”

“ On Gottlieb's birthday he gave him a shocking smoking-jacket of cherry and mauve velvet, and when he called at Gottlieb's flat, which was often, Gottlieb had to put on the ghastly thing and sit humming while Sondelius assaulted him with roaring condemnations of mediocre soup and mediocre musicians...That Sondelius gave up surprisingly decorative dinner-parties for these calls, Gottlieb never knew.
Martin turned to Sondelius for courage as he turned to Terry for concentration. Courage and concentration were needed, in these days of an Institute gone insane, if a man was to do his work. ”

“ Enter Gottlieb in the king's clothes.
Gottlieb
Your majesty—
King
This must be the Count! I recognize him from my clothes! Get in, my dear chap — how do you do? — Where do you get all the rabbits? — I'm beside myself with joy! — Drive on, coachman! ”

“ In less than five minutes the whole school was dressed, and Gottlieb, in his sounding shoes, having urged the dilatory with another admonitory schwind, schwind! has departed, key and candle in hand, to arouse the remaining sleepers, by ringing the "Great Tom" of the chateau. So cold and cheerless was this matutinal summons, that occasional attempts were made to evade it by simulated headach, or, without being quite so specific, on the plea of general indisposition, though it was well known beforehand what the result would be. ”

“ But when a few cold flakes had lighted on her nose, she drew back her head, closed the window, and said to her husband: "Gottheb, stay at home, and let Philip watch for thee to-night; for the snow comes as fast as it can from Heaven, and thou knowest the cold does thy old bones no good. The streets will be gay to-night. There seems dancing and feasting in every house, masqueraders are going about, and Philip will enjoy the sport."
Old Gottlieb nodded his assent. ”