Hahn

“ Wallie confessed that he used it as an intoxicant and a stimulant.
"That's it!" cried Hahn, excitedly. "If I could play I'd have done more. More."
"Why don't you get one of those piano-players, What-you-call'ems?" Then, immediately, "No, of course not."
"Nah, that doesn't do it," said Hahn, quickly. "That's like adopting a baby when you can't have one of your own. It isn't the same. It isn't the same. It looks like a baby, and acts like a baby, and sounds like a baby—but it isn't yours. It isn't you. That's it! It isn't you!" ”

“ What the Countess Hahn Hahn feels and expresses with all the fervour of a poetical imagination—the sort of exhilarating and exulting love for the most classical stream of modern story—is felt in a greater or less degree by all intellectual classes of Germans. ”

“ As he reached the second landing, panting and breathless, he found himself in violent contact with another person, who, like himself, seemed to be fumbling for the bell-handle.
"Beg your pardon, sir," said a voice in the dark.
"What, you sneaking young villain!" cried Hahn in great wrath (for the voice was only too familiar to him) ; "I might have known you were up to some devilish trick, or you wouldn't——"
Here the senior Hahn choked, and was seized with a violent coughing fit.
"You miserable old sinner!" hissed Fritz; "the devil has already got his finger on your throat." ”

“ A born cook, she was, and Hahn and Wallie used to go there to dinner whenever she would let them. She cooked it herself. Hahn would give up any engagement for a dinner at Mizzi's. When he entered her little sitting room his cares seemed to drop from him. She never got over cutting bread as the peasant women do it—the loaf held firmly against her breast, the knife cutting toward her. Hahn used to watch her and laugh. Sometimes she would put on the little black head-shawl of her Budapest days and sing the street-song about the hundred geese in a row. ”

“ Hahn, sorrowfully; "there are times when everything goes wrong, dear Gabriel."
"Yes, what a roguish trick that was, last night," said Gabriel, pityingly.
Mr. Hahn sprang up.
"He called me insane and said I was a coxcomb. Am I to put up with that? I, a man of business, and in my own garden! As for the plaything, you may be right enough; one must not put too much confidence in men. But now my honor is touched, and I tell you the bells shall remain, and I shall place a watchman there every night." ”

“ The party now passed the rest of the evening together in the room, and the two Bavarians closely watched Hahn and Kern in order to satisfy themselves that the mystery was no trick of theirs. All at once, as they were quietly sitting at the table, the snuffers rose into the air and fell again to the ground behind Magerle, and a leaden ball flew at Hahn and hit him upon the breast, and presently afterward they heard a noise at the glass-door, as if somebody had struck his fist through it, together with a sound of falling glass. ”

“ Now count, please, and sign the receipt, Doctor," he said, authoritatively, pushing him down on his chair.
"Mr. Hummel," began Hahn, somewhat indistinctly, for it was difficult for him to speak in his emotion, "I shall never forget this hour to the end of my life." He wished to go up to him and give him his hand, but the tears streamed from his eyes and he was obliged to cover his face with his pocket-handkerchief.
"Be seated," said Hummel, pushing him down on the sofa; "steadiness and stoicism are always the main thing; they are better than Chinese toys. ”

“ Hahn's favor, as it gave him ample time to perfect his arrangements, so that, when the day arrived, the "Haute Noblesse" presented a most brilliant appearance. Vividly colored transparencies, representing the most sanguinary battle scenes in more or less fictitious surroundings were suspended among the trees; Danish officers were seen in all sorts of humble attitudes, surrendering their swords or begging for mercy, while the Prussian and Austrian heroes, maddened with warlike fury, stormed onward in the path of glory and victory. ”

“ That may remain so; what is not harmonious need not harmonise. When you call me bristles and felt, I will be coarse to you, and I will consider you as a straw blockhead as often as I am angry with you. But with all that, we may have, as now, private business together; and if ever, which I hope will never happen, robbers should plunder me, you will do for me as much as you can. This I know and have always known, and therefore I am come to you to-day."
Hahn gave him a look of warm gratitude, and again raised his pocket-handkerchief. ”

“ They may be eat.'
'So!' Hahn looked pleased. 'Zey vere fatter as you. Ze niggers keep you to fatten, eh? Veil, Ephraim Meek, I save you, see? I bring you here. You are safe. Of course, you must make yourself useful. You shall eat, zerefore shall you vork. You shall find a pick or a basket--and zere is blenty of coal.'
Meek stroked his whiskers, looked at the German, then shook his head.
'No; I can't do it,' he said. 'Not coal.' Hahn laughed.
'You do look like a broken-kneed horse,' he said. 'Not equal to ze niggers ”

“ Hahn, as if we were contestants—combatants, as one might say—instead of being a quartette of friends. There is no need of witnesses where everything has gone on as smoothly as has been the case since you entered this room. You represent men who are only too anxious to do the right thing, and you meet, I hope, a man who is desirous of effecting a compromise, and I think I may say the same for my friend Mackeller. ”

“ Mr. Hahn, of course, was overflowing with loyalty and patriotism, which, like all his other sentiments, he was anxious to convert into cash. He had therefore made arrangements for a Siegesfest, on a magnificent scale, which was to take place on the second of May, when the first regiments of the victorious army were expected in Berlin. It was the details of this festival which he and Fritz had been plotting in the back room at the restaurant, and they were both in a state of agreeable agitation at the thought of the tremendous success which would, no doubt, result from their combined efforts. ”

“ The explanation explained nothing to Jovannic, least of all his own sensations when the sudden surrender and the sad, pitying mirth had succeeded to the struggle and the violence. He let Captain Hahn preach his German gospel of system on earth and organization to man, and walked beside him in silence, with pensive eyes fixed ahead, where the prisoner and his escort moved in a plodding black group. ”

“ From the breast of his jacket he exhumed a white handkerchief. "Arrivederci!" he called for the last time to the interior of the house; someone within answered pleasantly; then deliberately, with a suggestion of ceremonial and significance in the gesture, he buried the obscenity of his countenance in the handkerchief and blew his nose as one blows upon a trumpet.
"Tadellos!" applauded Captain Hahn enthusiastically. "He invented that signal himself; he's the only man in the village who carries a handkerchief. Und jetzt geht's los!" ”

“ Hummel. But his suffering became greater when, walking angrily across the street and inquiring the name of the man who was causing such injury to the light and reputation of his house, he learned that his future neighbor was to be a manufacturer by the name of Hahn. That it should of all men in the world be he, was the greatest vexation fate could inflict upon him. Mr. Hahn was respectable; there was nothing to be said against his family; but he was Mr. Hummel's natural opponent, for the business of the new settler was also in hats, although straw hats. ”

“ But Hahn, too, was sorry immediately. "You know how I am, Wallie. I like to run a thing off by myself. What do you know about her? Find out anything?"
"Well, a little. She doesn't seem to have any people. And she's decent. Kind of a fierce kid, I guess, and fights when offended. They say she's Polish, not Hungarian. Her mother was a peasant. Her father—nobody knows. I had a dickens of a time finding out anything. The most terrible language in the world—Hungarian. They'll stick a b next to a k and follow it up with a z and put an accent mark over the whole business and call it a word. ”

“ Finally, I tell you further, I will at once send over for Fritz Hahn and tell him everything, and then he shall deal with you. Fritz Hahn will get the better of you, you know, and so do I, for he always did when we were children. I know you, Magister. We, in our street, are not the sort of people to allow ourselves to be hoodwinked, and we value good conduct in the neighborhood. Therefore, procure the parchment, or you shall know Laura Hummel."
Thus spoke Laura with flaming eyes, and clenching her little hand at the Magister. Ilse looked with astonishment at her determined friend. ”

“ Though the trouble thus ended happily, we can understand how insecure the life of the German Jews was at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Hence we need not be surprised to find in Hahn’s book Yosif Omez (§ 483) a form of dying confession drawn up in Frankfort to be recited by those undergoing martyrdom. It is a moving composition, simple in its pathos, yet too poignant in its note of sorrow to be cited here in full.
Let it not be thought, however, that the book is a doleful one. Joseph Hahn’s is a warm-hearted Judaism, and there was room in it for a manifold [Pg 131] human interest. ”

“ The term Hahn by general acceptation signifies ‘singer.’ With this word, according to the laws of substitution, the stem of Latin canere, ‘to sing’ (compare Lithuanian gaidýs, ‘cock,’ literally ‘singer,’ allied to gêdoti, ‘to sing’) . A feminine, ‘songstress,’ of Huhn is hardly conceivable; thus it follows that Henne is merely a recent West Teutonic form. The common gender Huhn, however, can hardly be connected with the root kan, ‘to sing,’ since it is, at least, a primitive form. ”

“ Mr. Hahn, Sr., having satisfied himself as to his son's sincerity, retired to his private chamber; not for the purpose of going to rest, however, but in order to make an elaborate toilet, having completed which, he hailed a droschke and drove to an obscure little street in the Friedrich-Wilhelm Stadt, where he ordered the coachman to stop. As he was preparing to dismount, he saw to his astonishment another droschke driving away from the door which he was intending to enter. ”

“ Hummel," exclaimed Mr. Hahn, across the street, in a conciliatory tone.
"Nothing is inexplicable," cried out Mr. Hummel, "but the mischievous insanity of hanging bells in the open air over a public street."
"I resent your attack," called out Mr. Hahn deeply wounded. "I have a right to hang up what I like on my own property."
Then there began a conflict of views across the street, weird and frightful. There Hummel's bass, here Hahn's sharp voice, which gradually rose into a counter-tenor ”

“ Then followed the flight of the flock, rushing together in a heap--Spitehahn in the midst of them, barking, scratching and biting, the brute sped along a dry ditch to the left, and finally down the slope to the wood into the thickest copse. At length he trotted home in safety, showing his teeth, and leaving his young mistress trembling beneath the hand of the shepherd, who was still brandishing his stick over her.
"Let go of the young lady," called out the angry voice of a man. Fritz Hahn sprang forward, pushed back the arm of the shepherd, and caught Laura, fainting, in his arms. ”

“ Hahn, but this was entirely altered by the introduction of the dogs: the whole street went over to the man of straw; the man of felt had all the world against him. But Mr. Hummel cared little for this. In the evening he sat in the garden on the upturned boat, looking proudly at the neighboring house, while Fighthahn and the other dog sat at his feet blinking at the moon, who in her usual way looked down maliciously on Mr. Hummel, Mr. Hahn, and all the rest of the world. ”

“ Hahn had not the strength to resist the temptation of knowing how the new-born wonder would impress the Countess von Markenstein. Another terrible scene followed. The poor woman could never understand that she was no longer the wife of a waiter, and that she must not be paying visits to the great folks in their kitchens. ”

“ By now his earnestness had impressed Hahn who still feigned an indifference he did not feel. It was about 11:30 when Wallie propelled him by the arm to the unfinished building across the way. And there he met Mizzi.
They were just completing the foundation. The place was a busy hive. Back and forth with pails. Back and forth with loads of bricks.
"What's the matter with the men?" was Hahn's first question.
Wallie explained. "They do the dainty work. They put one brick on top of the other, with a dab of mortar between. But none of the back-breaking stuff for them. The women do that." ”

“ Julius Hahn was a person of no small consequence in Berlin. He was the proprietor of the "Haute Noblesse" Concert garden, a highly respectable place of amusement, which enjoyed the especial patronage of the officers of the Royal Guard. Weissbeer, Bairisch, Seidel, Pilzner, in fact all varieties of beer, and as connoisseurs asserted, of exceptional excellence, could be procured at the "Haute Noblesse;" and the most ingenious novelties in the way of gas illumination, besides two military bands, tended greatly to heighten the flavor of the beer, and to put the guests in a festive humor. ”