BEHIND THE COUNTER.* This is a wonderfully fresh and lively
picture of German life,— full of humour, clear and true in the delineation of character, and with much more even of narrative interest than is common with the best German novelists of the modern school. Mrs. Howitt's name is probably a better guarantee for the fidelity of the translation than any opinion of ours, even if we had compared it with the original, which we have not. Her English is, as usual, simple and idiomatic up to something like the best classical standard.
The form of the story is autobiographical, and begins with the childhood of the hero, who is an orphan, and just about to be apprenticed by his grandmother and aunts to a respectable grocer, Herr Reissmehl, in one of the half-Catholic, half-Protestant towns of Germany. Very amusing are the deliberations on this subject of grandmamma and the aunts, and that lachrymose old friend of the family, Miss Schmied,—an intensely German figure, — who is always lamenting over the orphanhood of the youthful hero and over his deceased father, ostensibly on the ground that had the said father lived, the child would have been sent to college and become a minister, instead of descending into retail trade, but really because kindly lachry mosity is her nature and essence. We have also an admirable picture of Herr Reissmehl, the formal old gentleman who is the boy's first master, his rambles round his garden each morning, his punctilious ceremonial in stopping at the same places every day to examine the same plants and touch the same trees, with all Dr. Johnson's remorse and laborious effort at reparation, if by chance he had omitted any, and his complete subjection when in the house to his ill-tempered sister, Miss Barbara Reissmehl. There is a very graphic picture, too, of the dejected and lanky Philip,—the elder apprentice,—and his melancholy submission to the fate of making love to Miss Barbara ; he is a sort of German Mr. Augustus Moddle, but without enough of vitality, even in the way of intensity of terror, to enable him to take refuge in flight. And by way of contrast to these lean and spiritless subjects of a cross-grained woman we have a very spirited picture of the fast medical student, Herr Dr. Burbus, as—without University authority—he calls himself, who lives in the house on the other side of the narrow street, frightens Miss Barbara out of her wits by exhibiting a full-length skeleton at the window facing her room, and otherwise disturbs the peace of the household by bridging the street with a plank from window to window, across which narrow drawbridge he tempts the miserable Philip and his more spirited co-apprentice, by offering them fragrant glasses of steaming punch. Very happy and also very German is the sentimental suggestion which Philip makes to his betrothed, Miss Barbara, on the day when Herr Reissmehl's consent to their union has just been gained,—the formal old gentleman having, by the way, consulted the oracle as to his answer by counting his trees, saying ' yes' and ' no' alternately as he struck each till the last tree gave out a decisive yes.' Herr Dr. Burbus has just decamped in debt, leaving the skeleton with his few books in the hands of the creditors, and Philip has this inspiration for a Christian revenge on Miss Barbara's foe :—" Oh, Barbara !" said he, " if your heart,—thy heart I should say,—only felt as much disposed to forgiveness as mine does,—of which I do not doubt, because I know that thou art more noble-minded than I am,— then let us, in return for all the mischievous tricks that the doctor has played us, heap coals of fire on his head, even though, now that he has run away, he should never know a word about it! Let us by a beautiful action somewhat atone for the injustice of which he is guilty. Barbara, permit me to go up there and buy that skeleton, which we will then quietly lay to rest in consecrated earth." To which Miss Barbara assents, merely requesting that this little sentimental expense might be concealed from her brother, " for he knows " says she, " so little of the poetry of life, that he could not understand this beautiful action." That is essentially German as well as truly humorous to those who have a fuller knowledge of Mr. Philip and Miss Barbara than we can stay to give our readers.
The friendship with Herr Dr. Burbus, and its at first disastrous consequences, are used to present a very lively and spirited picture of German social life. The fast German medical student is a fair companion picture to Dickens's Bob Sawyer,—not so amusing,— for Dickens lends Bob Sawyer a good deal of his own humour,— but certainly as life-like, and, in spite of his rather inane jollity, a picture of a character that is less selfish, more humane and attractive than that of the typical English medical student of the same fast class. English fastness,' though not so wayward and gusty, is coarser and more grossly selfish than the more innocent though also more impulsive and childish fastness of the corresponding German type. Dr. Burbus is as senseless in his practical jokes as the German roysterers usually are, but there is something warm-hearted and attractive about him from the first.
The later part of the tale, when the boy is growing into a young man, is fully up to the opening, and has, of course, more of plotinterest in it. The picture of the generous and methodical Madame Stieglitz, the mistress of the little silk manufactory and silk warehouse, and of her eccentric husband and his fits of insanity are remarkable drawings. And still more effective is the figure of the pietistic chief clerk, Mr. Specht, with his sensual religion or religious sensuality, his constant study of Solomon's Song, and the not wholly theatrical though impure mysticism which throws a cloud over his mind. Of course the connection is obvious and very skilfully painted between this confusion of religion with sensuality, and the insincerity of heart which leads to thorough rascality in the end. Altogether, this tale of Herr Hackliinder's seems to us to show much more than talent,—true genius, though it is a tale of the quietest kind, and has none of the self-consciousness of high art, none of the airs of artists who have got a reputation for analyzing human nature, about it. If the modern German novel literature contains much that is -al good, the Germans must be fast overtaking us in a department of literature for which they have as yet obtained but little credit.
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