This little man wore a neatly brushed but rather threadbare coat, cut in a fashion that had prevailed ten years before, and a large white cravat, fastened with a pin containing a woman's picture. He had placed upon the counter an old-fashioned grey hat, with a piece of crape twisted around it, and, with both hands resting on his cane, he sat opposite the shoemaker, who had just examined the slippers, and said that they could be mended so as to look very well, only that a part of the embroidery would be lost.
"Spare as much of it as you can," pleaded the little gentleman. "They were my dead wife's last birthday gift; she worked them herself. I have worn them constantly for five years; but I step so lightly that I don't wear out many shoes. I suppose I am your worst customer," he added, with an apologetic smile.
"That is of no consequence, Herr König," replied the shoemaker; "it is always an honor as well as a pleasure to work for you and your family, not only on account of the high instep which you all have, but because you are an artist and have an eye for shape. As for the durableness of the shoes, that is not your fault, but the fault of the leather. But wait till your daughter goes to balls. Good work is of no avail then, Herr König; dancing shoes which are not as delicate and as easily broken as poppy-leaves, do the shoemaker no credit."
The little gentleman shook his head thoughtfully.
"My daughter, I fear, will give you little opportunity to earn money in that article," said he, "She has no desire for any of the seemly amusements which I would willingly grant her; her mind is filled with her work and her father; she can't be induced to attend to anything else."
"Well, well," said the shoemaker, drawing from his jacket a little silver snuff-box, which he offered the artist, "those things will come as a matter of course. Young ladies always have some peculiarities, you know; they do not forget the mother; but women are women, Herr König, and there is no virtue in youth. True, you yourself still wear crape around your hat; in your case constancy may be in the blood. But wait a while. The will, Herr König, is master; the perception weak; of how weak it is, we have sometimes little idea."
"You are mistaken," replied the other, fixing his eyes which wore a quiet, thoughtful expression upon the floor. "She has become perfectly cheerful again, and I also, though every day I still miss my dead wife. God does not like to see discontented faces, He has made the world too beautiful for that. The crape—yes, I have kept it on my hat. Why should I take it off, and when? It would seem very strange to me, to say to myself on a certain day: From this time things shall no longer be as they were yesterday; I will now remove this token of remembrance. Should I thereby blot out the memory too? But even if her mother were still alive, I do not think the child would be any different. She has a very peculiar character."
"Be kind enough to permit me to differ from you," said the shoemaker with great positiveness, despite the courteous language he studiously adopted. "Women—true women—have generally no character of their own, but one that belongs in common to all the sex. For the sole object for which they are in the world, is, to use Salvenia's words, only to continue the species, or, as we term it, for propagation. A woman who desires anything else, has something wrong about her; I say this without intending to cast any reflections upon your daughter."
The artist opened his little eyes to their widest extent. "My dear Feyertag, why do you say such strange things?" he said, naïvely. "Is not a woman as much a creature of the dear God as we ourselves? formed in his image, and endowed with soul and mind?"
The shoemaker laughed, as if fully conscious of his own superiority.
"Don't take it amiss, Herr König," he said, "but that is an exploded opinion. Have you never heard of the great philosopher, Schopenhauer? He will make you understand it thoroughly; he will prove as plainly as that twice two make four, of what account is the so-called emancipation of women."
"I don't have much time to read," replied the little artist. "But the little you have told me does not render me anxious to become familiar with an author who has thought so slightingly of the noblest and most lovable portion of humanity. I prefer to say with my beloved Schiller, 'Honor to women'!"
"'They spin and weave,'" replied, the shoemaker. "Yes, and they can do it very skillfully, and it is an extremely useful occupation. But in other things, in the employments of men—this low-statured, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped, and short-legged sex, as Herr Schopenhauer expresses it,—no, Herr König, men must not allow them to become too strong. Propagation, nothing more. But propaganda, you see, for the liberal and progressive, is our affair. For instance, there is my wife; the best woman in the world! But if I did not now and then show her that I am master, where should I be? I admit that during the last few years, out of pure indolence, I have allowed her to do and say more than was well. But Schopenhauer has brought me to myself. Now, when she mistakes her social position, and wants to emancipate herself too much, I say: 'Hush, Guste. You, too, were once an explosive effect of Nature; but now the noise has died away, and the effect remains.' Then she scolds about my worthless way of talking, as she calls it, but no longer ventures to say anything, because she has not the least suspicion what I really mean by it, and that it is in Schopenhauer. Ha! ha! ha!"
He chuckled with delight, and rubbed his broad hands.
"How did you chance upon this mischievous book?" asked the artist.
"Very naturally. In my back building lives a very learned gentleman, a philosopher by profession, and soon to become professor of philosophy. One day, when he was not at home, the bookbinder's boy came and left in my shop a whole package of freshly bound books, which I was to keep for the Herr Doctor. It was after dinner, when I usually take a little nap. So, half asleep, I aimlessly took the uppermost book in my hand, and began to read at the place where it opened. Zounds, how my eyes flew open! 'Upon females' was the heading of the chapter. I could not stop till I had read the last lines. I tell you, Herr König, old King Solomon, much as he knew about women, and propagation, and the conception of species, might have gone to school to him."
"Is Schopenhauer the author's name? And do you call him a philosopher, because he revives the old commonplaces about the other sex?"
The little artist's eyes flashed as he uttered these words, and he seized his hat as if he were in a hurry to leave the shop.
"He is a philosopher, for the Herr Doctor himself says so; but not merely because of what he has written about women; the Herr Doctor showed me another thick book. He said it treated of will and perception; however, it was too heavy for me. If you would like to read it, he will cheerfully lend it to you."
"Thank you, I have not the slightest desire to make the acquaintance of a gentleman who holds and desires to spread such opinions."
"The Herr Doctor? There you are very much mistaken, Herr König. He won't listen to a word about the essay on women, and says there is just as much falsehood as truth in it. He is a bachelor, Herr König, and what does a bachelor know about the conception of species? Besides, he never associates with women, but devotes himself entirely to his invalid brother. They might as well be in a monastery, Herr König; my wife often says that if we were to advertise in the newspapers and offer a reward of a hundred thalers, we could not find such another couple of well-behaved young men in all Berlin."
"Indeed? And learned too, you say?"
"Only the older one, the Herr Doctor. He has not much money, because he is at the university, and you are probably