Josef Breuer

“ Phil and Ione were attacked by nausea until, again, they had to lie down. After that came the familiar succession: the wooden animals, the tangle of vines, the vast sea, the spheres, and more blurred scenes. Then came a pause, with the nebula and the glorious suns swinging into view once again.
"Oh, I understand!" Ione exclaimed; "We're swinging. The safe was so heavy that we swung too violently, too far, and back again—"
"And we keep going till it knocks us out, or till the old cat dies," added Phil. ”

“ He cries out feebly with his shattered lung: "I won't go to the Dying Room."
"But we are going to the bandaging ward."
"Then what do you want my tunic for?" He can speak no more. Hoarse, agitated, he whispers: "Stopping here!"
They do not answer but wheel him out. At the door he tries to raise himself up. His black curly head sways, his eyes are full of tears. "I will come back again! I will come back again!" he cries.
The door shuts. We are all excited; but we say nothing. At last Josef says: "Many a man has said that. Once a man is in there, he never comes through." ”

“ His superior as though discovering a fatal weakness in the completed structure, said in renewed despair: "while you have the right man, it won't do."
"Why, Excellency," asked Josef with no diminution of that glacial smile. It was as though he held his superior in hardly concealed contempt.
"The papers," said Haupt. "They can't be forged. We have no precedents to follow. Those chaps over there will know the thing by rote and probably would recognize the signatures more quickly than their own." ”

“ One was Fox's "Gradus ad Parnassum," a treatise on composition and counterpoint; the other Matheson's "The Complete Capellmeister." Happy in the possession of these books, Josef used every moment outside of school and choir practise to study them. He loved fun and games as well as any boy, but music always came first. The desire to perfect himself was so strong that he often added several hours each day to those already required, working sixteen or eighteen hours out of the twenty-four. ”

“ He put out the desk light. Before putting out that on the center-table he took another look to make sure everything was safe and to take a survey, as he often did, of the comfort and beauty of the room. He liked beautiful and refined things, did Josef. At his mother's home in Augsburg everything was well scrubbed and clean, but coarse, very coarse. Here what a difference! How his old mother would stare and wipe her lips. Maybe his brothers would stay in America, too, if they were here. He raised his eyes to the portraits. What would Emil and Friedl say to women like that, eh? ”

“ Phil stiffened. He determined to leap and risk a shot. But he was too late. Tony's hand came down on a switch. There was a sudden, nauseating jar. The laboratory vanished.
There was only the safe, Ione Bloomsbury and himself, and a small circle of concrete floor extending to a dim little horizon a dozen feet away. Beyond that, nothing. Not blue, as the sky is. Not black, as dark, empty spaces are. It suggested black, because there was no impression of light or color on the eyes ”

“ Franz Josef is cold, pitiless, and does not hesitate to ruin in a moment his most faithful servitor if he is at any time guilty of failure, or commits a blunder. Even when a minister or general is forced to carry out an order in spite of strong protests, he has relentlessly broken him if any catastrophe has resulted. A notable case is that of the general who commanded the Austrian armies in the battle of Sadowa. ”

“ I gritted my teeth tightly, to keep myself from speaking.
"Professor Vibens, what's a gostak?" I asked in the solitude of his office an hour later.
He looked pained.
He leaned back in his chair and looked me over elaborately, and waited some time before answering.
"Hush!" he finally whispered. "A scientific man may think what he pleases; but if he says too much, people in general may misjudge him. As a matter of fact, a good many scientific men are taking this so-called patriotism seriously. But a mathematician cannot use words loosely ”

“ Crayton was unaware of all three. He bent over the chess-table, absorbed in the next move. The fingers of one hand were grouped intently, consideringly, on one of the pieces. One would have said his hand thought.
Josef went back noiselessly to his butler's sitting-room and to the letters he was writing. His three brothers had joined the colors and his fierce old mother in Augsburg expected him to return to fight for the Fatherland. Of course he had not the slightest idea of returning! Not he! He liked America and meant to stay in it. ”

“ The little city of adobe walls seemed not to have changed a hair's turn in the six years since I had seen it last. Out beyond the sandy arroyo again Father Josef waited for us. The same strong face and dark eyes, full of fire, the same erect form and manly bearing were his. Except for a few streaks of gray in his close-cropped hair the years had wrought no change in him, save that his countenance betokened the greater benediction of a godly life upon it. ”

“ He’s had a hard time in some ways, that Josef—yet he has his hunting, which is a great pleasure. I’d tell him about college and big cities, where he’s never been in his life, not even to Quebec, [Pg 110] and he’d ask the simplest, most childlike questions about things, so that sometimes it made me feel sorry and a bit ashamed somehow to have had all the chances.
After we’d talked a while that way I’d get him to sing for me, for he’s got a corking voice and they are all musical, these habitants. ”

“ The Roman soldiers quailed as they saw the big car hurtling toward them, but they had no time to retreat. The bumper struck the mass of men with a thud and a crash of metal. Dark spatters appeared on the windshield and things crunched sickeningly. The car swerved and swung, dizzily, and John's forehead bumped against the glass ahead of him, but his hands hung to the wheel. The fenders crumpled and the wheels bumped over soft things. Just as he thought the car would overturn, he found himself flying smoothly down a clear road ”

“ Behrens would say; and I've told Joseph that he's not to mix himself up in the affair or to talk about it at all. He's quite changed latterly. He has got into the habit of putting up his back and meddling with things with which he has nothing to do. Now just keep quiet, Joseph."--"Yes, Joseph, hold your tongue," said Bräsig.--"And my two girls," continued Mrs. Nüssler, "are quite different from what they used to be. Since that unlucky sermon their eyes have always been red with crying, and they've gone about the house as quietly as mice. ”

“ Worn with the battle which had witnessed his defeat, he had just completed his cipher message, when, following a modest knock at the door, Josef entered complacently with the pent-browed peasant at his heels.
"If monsieur desires to send despatches," said the Hereditary Servitor, "he can make his arrangements with Johann here. Johann goes at once to Vienna, via Schallberg. He is trustworthy and discreet. Can I be of further service to monsieur? No? ”

“ He was an extremely talented young man not only in music but even as architect and inventor. Of more serious and sober disposition than either of his two brothers, he long regarded café-house music condescendingly, his musical preference being for the classics. His famous brother, Johann Strauss II, needing someone to help him direct his orchestra, finally prevailed on Josef to turn to café-house music. Josef made his debut as café-house conductor and composer simultaneously on July 23, 1853, his first waltz being Die Ersten. ”

“ With a string of muffled imprecations Jose made a move as if to go back up the slope, but Blera put her hands on his shoulders and checked him.
“Don’t, Jose, don’t!” she besought. “They’ll maim and manhandle you till you’re a proper cripple. And the word’ll go round like a plague. There isn’t any tent there for us tonight.”
“I ain’t seein’ any here either, then,” snarled Jose. “You know how light we come over the Pass to make it in a day. Grub enough for one stop, and no blankets!”
“Well,” shivered Blera petulantly, “there’s lots of fire, isn’t there? What’s the use of lamenting in the frost?” ”

“ At any rate, in this country, there is an amiable disposition to regard Franz Josef as a victim rather than an accomplice, a weakling writhing beneath the jack-boot of Prussia, impotent to hold his own. It may not be so. Time alone will reveal the truth. ”

“ They give me the impression of being feeble-minded."
"Good fighting machines," John remarked.
When he got back to his room, the radio was urging everybody to go to sleep and rest. There were guards detailed for necessary night work, and there was no danger. Freshness and strength would be needed tomorrow. But John was too excited following his strenuous day, and knew that sleep would be impossible. He kept on listening to the news from the radio, which was trying to solve the mystery of these Roman hordes. ”

“ The Emperor Franz Josef is probably as thoroughly beloved by his subjects as any sovereign in history has ever been. His great misfortunes—fearful defeats in the wars with France and Germany, the suicide of his only son, the assassination of his wife, and family troubles in more recent times—have thrown about him an atmosphere of romantic sympathy; while love for his kindly qualities is mingled with respect for his plain common sense. During his stay in Berlin I met him a second time. At my first presentation at Dresden, two years before, there was little opportunity for extended conversation ”

“ This time the Socialist was fairly staggered. But strange as the suggestion sounded, it was difficult for him to think of any valid reason for rejecting it. On [195] the contrary, it might be that such a step would be most desirable, by committing the King irrevocably, and giving the revolutionary party a stronger hold upon him than the mere private compact which bound him to Johann personally.
He turned the matter over in his mind, and it ended in his procuring a card of membership for Maximilian, which enrolled him as a member of the Socialist League, under the name of Karl Josef. ”

“ Bhaer paused, out-talked, but not one whit convinced, Jo wanted to clap her hands and thank him.
She did neither; but she remembered this scene, and gave the Professor her heartiest respect, for she knew it cost him an effort to speak out then and there, because his conscience would not let him be silent. She began to see that character is a better possession than money, rank, intellect, or beauty; and to feel that if greatness is what a wise man has defined it to be,—"truth, reverence, and good-will,"—then her friend Friedrich Bhaer was not only good, but great. ”

“ And M’sieur Jack was also capable to portage a canoe like a guide, tossing the heavy boat to his shoulders unaided and swinging off down a trail as silently, as swiftly as an Indian; and he could tie up a pacqueton—and [Pg 7] make camp in a rain—and skin a moose; these things and others M’sieur Jack could do, and Josef was proud of him. But M’sieur Jack could not see into the woods like Josef and he was not as quick at hearing sounds—of that also Josef was proud. So he smiled and waited for the question sure to come. “What the dickens makes you think he’s a big man—un homme pesant?” ”

“ I looked till my eyeballs popped, and not a blessed bird could I see for minutes, and then, with much directing from Josef, I caught sight of a lump with a wriggle to it, on the top branch of a spruce like a thousand other spruces, half-way up a hillside.
It’s a treat to see him bend over a dim footprint in the moss, deep in the woods, and to watch those search-light eyes widen and brighten, and notice how he puts his rough fingers down as delicately as a lady. Then in a minute he’ll blink a quick glance and say quietly:
“Un orignal, M’sieur Bob—a moose. There is about an hour that he passed. ”

“ Surely he can offer neither testimony nor enlightenment."
Though cautioned to stay within call, Josef was dismissed to his unrevealed disappointment.
"Now, go ahead, Johann," commanded the Privy Counselor, when the sound of receding footsteps assured him that Josef was no longer in earshot.
"I never had so much money at one time," continued the messenger, manifestly ill at ease since the departure of Josef. "I began to wonder why the stranger had given it to me for so simple a service. When the dumb man ponders overlong he seeks counsel. ”

“ De Lorbe waited, only bending forward a trifle more through the dusk. Josef continued:
"What is an army of strong men to do in a foreign land? Can officers and a few men control a thing like that? My mother in Augsburg writes me. She knows. She is old. She is wise. She has known for years all that was going to happen. She has written me twice of our brave men already lost. But she says: 'There will be a rich harvest in the Fatherland this year, and in Belgium, please God.' I think there will be."
Crayton sat staring ashily at Josef as a man stares at some apparition. ”

“ Then the door opened.
"It is he," whispered Josef. All heads uncovered and each man bowed low. Delmotte stood petrified with astonishment.
"Messieurs," he said at last, recovering his speech, "messieurs, I am honored." Then as his eyes lighted on Josef, they sparkled with unexpected recognition. "You are Petros," he said, puzzled by the brilliant throng surrounding him.
"Josef Petros Zolsky, Your Majesty. I am your childhood's retainer and hereditary servitor. Yes, I am he you call Petros," and the white head bowed low as a gratified light kindled in the crafty eyes. ”