Books: My Life and My Efforts

K >> Karl May >> My Life and My Efforts

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[a] Spanish for "holy brotherhood", an alliance of Spanish cities
with their own jurisdiction and police-force. I suppose, the
term is used figuratively here.
[b] Meister: a craftsman who has passed a special examination
before the chamber of handicrafts, which gives him the right
to own a business and to train others in that craft.

My father was the captain of the seventh company. He got a sabre
and a signal-whistle; but he was not content with this rank; he
had his sights on a higher position. Therefore, he decided that,
once he had finished his training, he would secretly, without
letting anybody know of it, practice his skills in the "higher
command". And since he had chosen me to assist him in this, I
was, for the time being, relieved from sewing gloves, and joined
him daily for a walk to the forest, where, on a meadow entirely
surrounded by bushes and trees, our secret evolution took place.
Father changed from a lieutenant, to a captain, a colonel, and a
general, while I was the entire Saxonian army. I was first
trained as a platoon, then as a an entire company. Thereafter, I
became a battalion, a regiment, a brigade, and a division. I had
to ride as well as run, forwards as well as backwards, to the
right and to the left, advance and retreat. Though I was not dumb
and was eagerly and lovingly engaged in the matter, I was
nevertheless still rather young and small; and so you might
imagine, considering the unpredictable nature of my general's
moods, that it was impossible for me to develop within such a
short time from a simple, small squad into a complete and powerful
army, without having experienced the severity of military
discipline firsthand. But I did not cry at any punishment; I was
too proud for that. There is no such thing as a crying Saxonian
army! Furthermore, the reward also came swiftly. When father had
become a vice-commander, he said to me: "My boy, you've had a
large part in this. I'll build a drum for you. You shall be an
army-drummer!" I was so happy! And there were moments when I was
really convinced that I had received all those slaps, pushes,
blows, and head-punches only for the benefit and safety of the
king of Saxony and his cabinet! If he only knew!

I got my drum, because father always kept his word. Master
plumber Leistner, who had his shop at the market of Hohenstein,
helped him in building it. It was a solo drum and had turned out
very well; it still exists today. Later, when I had grown a bit
older, but still being a boy, I had been a drummer for the seventh
company; I will have mention this drum once again at a later
point. The eleven companies performed their duty. They trained
almost daily, having more than enough time on their hands, since
there was no work. How we were nevertheless able to exist and
what kept us from starvation, I can no longer recall today; it
strikes me like a miracle. In other places, they were also out to
"save the king". They were in contact with one another and had
decided to get on their way to Dresden, as soon as the order was
given, and to risk everything for the king, possibly even their
lives. And on one beautiful day it came, that order. The bugles
sounded; the drums were rolled. From every door, the heroes
rushed forward, to gather on the market place. The master butcher
Haase was the regiment's adjutant. He had borrowed a horse and
sat right on top of it. It was no easy job for him to go between
the commander, the vice-commander, and the captains, because the
horse constantly disagreed with its rider. Judge Layritz's wife
draped her windows with a table-cloth and her Sunday saloppe [a].
This was our show of colours. Whoever had something that could
serve this purpose did what she had done. By this, the market
place gained a festive, joyful face. All around there was nothing
enthusiasm. Not even a hint of a sad farewell! No one felt the
need to bid his wife and children a special farewell. Only
exclamations of joy, a triple cheer, vivat, "hurray" all over the
place! The commander had a speech, followed by grand flourish of
the wind-instruments and the drums. Then came the commands of the
individual captains: "Attention - - eyes right, rrrright dress -
- eyes frrront - - order arms - - raise arms - - present arms - -
shoulder arms - - turn rrrright - - forward, marsh!" The adjutant
led the way on the borrowed horse, followed by the musicians with
the Turkish crescent and the drummers; then came the commander
and the vice-commander, thereafter the rifle-men, the guard, and
the nine other companies; thus, the entire host marched, left,
right - left, right, leaving town by the alleyway, which was then
called "Hintergasse" , passing by the coalpit's pond,
the same one which had been entrusted with our frogs, marching on
to Wuestenbrand, to reach the capitol via Chemnitz and Freiberg.
A crowd of friends and relatives followed in their train, to
escort the courageous troops up to the border of the small town's
jurisdiction. But I was with a man I held particularly dear,
Cantor Strauch, who was our neighbour; we stood in the door of
his house, together with Friederike, his wife, who was a sister of
Judge Layritz. They had no children, and I had been called upon
to run many a small errand for them. I worshipped him endlessly;
but she was repugnant to me, because the only reward I ever got
from her for all of my errands were rotten apples or mushy pears;
she also did not permit her husband to smoke more than two cigars,
at two pfennig a piece, per month. I had to get them for him from
the grocer, because he was ashamed of buying such cheap cigars for
himself, and he smoked them in the yard, because Friederike could
not stand the smell of tobacco. He was also truly delighted today
by the sight of our troops. Watching them leaving, he said:

[a] Saloppe: I have no idea what this word means.

"Yes, there is something great, something noble in this kind of
enthusiasm for God, king, and fatherland!"

"But what does one get out of it?" asked the cantor's wife.

"Bliss is what you get out of it, the genuine, the true kind of
bliss!"

With these words, he entered the house; he did not like to argue.
I went to our yard. There stood a French apple-tree [a]. I sat
in its shade and thought about what the cantor had said. So the
true kind of bliss was to be found in these words: God, king, and
fatherland; I wanted and had to remember that! Later, experience
has reshaped and ground down these words for me; but though they
might have altered their shapes, the inner essence has remained.

[a] Franzaepfelbaum: A small kind of apple-tree with hardly any
trunk, first grown in France.

Of all those who had moved out today, to perform great heroic
deeds, the borrowed horse was first to return. The adjutant had
handed it over to a currier, who brought it home, because walking
was much healthier than riding, and because the rider did not have
enough money saved to replace the horse, in case it would be
injured or even shot dead in a fight. The master weaver
Kretzschmar followed in the evening. He maintained that he could
not have walked any further with his flat-feet; this was a
natural defect, beyond his control. After dark, a few others
turned up as well, who were dismissed for urgent reasons, bringing
news that our corps had put up camp beyond Chemnitz, near Oederan,
and that spies had been sent to Freiberg to investigate the
battle-field there. In the morning, the surprising, but not at
all sad, news arrived that they had been instructed at Freiberg to
turn around immediately; they were not needed at all, since the
Prussians had moved into Dresden, and therefore, there was not
even the slightest danger for the king and the government any
more. You can easily imagine that there was no school and no work
on that day. I also refused to stitch any gloves. I simply ran
away and joined those brave boys and girls, who were to form
eleven companies and move out to meet their returning fathers on
the way. This plan was carried out. We made our camp at the
lakes of Wuestenbrand, and as soon those whom we were waiting for
came, we marched with them to the sound of music and the beating
of the drums, down the mountain at the rifle-house, where our
orphaned wives and mothers stood, to welcome all of us, tall and
small, some of them moved to tears, some laughing with joy.

Why do I tell all of this at such length? Because of the deep
impression it has made upon me. I have to point out the sources
from which the causes of my fate have flown out and joined. The
reason why I never wavered for a single moment in my faith in God,
in spite of everything that happened later, and why even when fate
hurled the rocky tablets of the law at me, I did not lose any part
of my respect for that law, is partially rooted in myself, but
also partially in those small events of my early boyhood, which
all had a more or less marked effect on me. I never forgot those
words of my old, dear cantor, which have not just become flesh and
blood, but also mind and soul for me.

After this excitement, life returned to its calm previous course.
Again, I sewed gloves and went back to school. But father was not
satisfied with this school. I was to learn more that what an
elementary school education had to offer in those days. My voice
developed into a good, resounding, versatile soprano. Therefore,
the cantor took me into the students' choir. Soon, I learnt to
hit every pitch and grew self-confident before an audience. So it
came that I was trusted to sing the solos in church after just a
short time. The congregation was poor; they did not have the
money to buy expensive sheet-music. The cantor had to copy it
manually and I helped him. Wherever this was not appropriate, he
composed himself. And he was a composer! And what a composer!
But he was from the small, unassuming village of Mittelbach, the
son of mortally poor, uneducated parents, he had literally starved
his way through music-school, and before he became teacher and
cantor his only clothes were a blue linen jacket and a pair of
blue linen trousers, he regarded one taler as a fortune, which
could support him for weeks. This poverty had deprived him of his
self-esteem. He did not know how to make his opinions count.
Everything was good enough for him. Being an quite excellent
organist, pianist, and violinist, he could also compose for any
other musical instrument, and he could have swiftly gained fame
and fortune, if he had only possessed more self-confidence and
courage. Everyone knew: Wherever in Saxony and across the border
a new organ was put into service, there cantor Strauch of
Ernstthal was sure to appear, to get acquainted with it and to
seek the opportunity to play it once. This was the only pleasure
he allowed himself. That is because he did not just lack the guts
to seek a higher position than that of cantor in Ernstthal, but
most of all he lacked the permission of his very strict wife
Friederike, who had been a prosperous girl and therefore dominated
the marriage like a thirty-two foot "principal" [a], while the
cantor was only allowed the voice of a soft "vox humana".
Together with her brother, she owned several orchards, and their
harvest was exploited down to the last fruit, and as I already
mentioned, I only got rotten or mushy apples and pears from her.
But she always succeeded in making a face as if she was giving
away an entire kingdom. She did not have the slightest concept of
her husbands immensely great worth, both as a person and as an
artist. She was tied to her orchards, and he was therefore tied
to Ernstthal. She did not care about his mental existence and his
spiritual needs. She never opened a single one of his books and
his many compositions disappeared, as soon as they were finished,
at the very bottom of those dusty chests in the attic. After he
had died, she had sold all of it as waste-paper to the paper-mill
without me being able to prevent it, because I was not at home.
What a deep misery, almost beyond an outsider's comprehension, is
this to be tied for an entire lifetime to such a female, who only
exists in the lowest spheres and prevents even the most talented,
or even ingenious, husband from reaching those better heights,
this is beyond words. My old cantor could only bear this misery,
because he possessed this immense ability to accept whatever life
would bring, supplemented by a kind-heartedness which could never
forget that he was just a poor devil, but that Friederike was a
rich girl and also the sister of the town's judge.

[a] The main register of an organ, usually eight feet tall.

Later, he taught me to play the organ, the piano, and the violin.
I have already said that father made the bow to go with the violin
himself. These lessons were most naturally for free, since my
parents were too poor to pay for them. His strict wife Friederike
did not agree with that at all. The organ lessons were given in
church and the violin lessons at school; the cantor's wife could
not do anything about that. But the piano was in the living-room,
and when I came knocking at the door, to ask about it, nine out of
ten times the cantor came out with the answer: "There is no
lesson today, dear Karl. My wife Friederike can't abide it; she
has a migraine." Sometimes, I was even told "she has vapeurs" [a].
I did not know what that was, but regarded it as something even
worse than that other thing I also knew nothing about, that
migraine. But I still felt uneasy about the fact that it only
occurred whenever I came to play the piano. The kind cantor
amended this loss by also giving me an introduction to harmonics,
whenever there was an opportunity; there was no need for
Friederike to find out about this, but this was in the later time
of my boyhood, and I am not quite there, yet.

[a] Vapeurs: gas or hysteric mood-swings (French)

As my father was impatient in all things, he was so too in regard
to what he called my "education". Mind you, he "educated" me; he
cared less for my sisters. He had placed all of his hopes in me
achieving in life, what he could not achieve, which was to obtain
not just a happier, but also a mentally higher position in life.
In this respect, I have to praise him for at least that much that,
in spite of regarding the wish for a so-called good income as the
most immediate priority, he saw the greater value in a sound
development of the personality in a mental respect. He felt this
in his innermost soul to a larger extent and more clearly, than he
was able to express in words. I was to become an educated,
possibly even a highly educated, man, able to achieve something
for the general well-being of humanity; this was his most
heartfelt wish, though he might not have expressed it in these
words, but differently. It is plain to see that he was asking a
lot, but this was no impudence on his part, but rather he always
believed in his wishes, and was fully convinced he could realize
them. But unfortunately, he was uncertain of the ways and means
for achieving this goal, and he underestimated the huge obstacles,
opposing his plan. He was willing to make every, even the
greatest, sacrifice, but he did not consider that even the very
greatest sacrifice of a poor devil does not carry the weight of
one gramme, one quentchen [a] against the opposition of the
general circumstances. And most of all, he never even suspected
that it took quite a different man than him for directing someone
towards such goals. He was of the opinion that, most of all, I
had to learn as much as possible, as quickly as possible, and all
of his actions were aiming at this with the greatest energy.

[a] Quentchen: An outdated German unit of measurement, 3.6515 g,
sometimes also a bit less.

I entered school at the age of five, which ended at the age of
fourteen. Learning was easy for me. I quickly caught up with my
two years older sister. Then, used school books were bought from
older boys. At home, I had to solve the problems, they had been
given in school. Thus, I soon became a stranger to my grade, a
severe psychological calamity for such a small, soft human child,
which was of course mostly beyond father's comprehension. I
believe that even the teachers did not suspect what a severe
mistake had been committed here. They just assumed without much
thought that a boy who cannot be taught anything new in his grade
simply had to be promoted to the next one in spite of his youth.
These gentlemen were all more or less close friends of my
father's, and so even the the local school inspector chose to
ignore the fact that I, at the age of eight or nine, sat among
boys who were eleven and twelve years old. In respect to my
mental progress, which, of course, does not mean much in an
elementary school, this might very well have been correct; but
in respect to my soul, it meant a severe, painful deprivation, I
was subjected to. Let me remark here that I make a very sharp
distinction between the mind and the soul, between what is mental
and what is spiritual (i.e. relating to the soul). What was given
to my little mind in those grades, I did not belong to according
to my age, was taken away from my soul. I did not sit among
children of my own age. I was regarded as an intruder, and all of
my little, warm needs of a child's soul were offered nothing to
satisfy them. I short, I was a stranger to my grade from the
start and became more of a stranger with every year. I had lost
the class-mates who had fallen behind, without winning those over
who were with me. Please, do not smile at this seemingly tiny,
most insignificant fate of a boy. An educator, knowing his way
around in the realm of a person's and a child's soul, will not
hesitate for a moment in taking this seriously, very seriously.
Every grown-up and even more every child wants to stand on firm
ground, which he must not lose, no matter what. But I had been
deprived of this ground. I have never had what is commonly
referred to as "boyhood". I was never granted a genuine, real
school-mate and boyhood-friend. The most simple consequence of
this is that I am still today, in my old age, a stranger to my
home-town, yes even more than any other stranger. They do not
know me there; I was never understood there, and so it happened
that a web of myths has been spun about me there, which I have to
reject most decidedly.

What I had to learn, according to my father, was not at all
limited to the lessons at school and the homework. He gathered
all kinds of material, without having the ability required to make
a selection or to determine any meaningful order. He brought
together everything he found. I had to read or even copy it,
since he believed that I could remember it better this way. What
did I have to endure, then! Old prayer-books, mathematical books,
books on natural history, learned treatises, I did not understand
a word of. I had to copy the entire 500 pages of a book on the
geography of Germany from 1802, in order to remember the numbers
better. There were, of course, already outdated for a very long
time! I spent entire days and half nights, cramming this
unnecessary stuff into my head. I was literally force-fed and
over-fed with this. I would probably have perished from it, if my
body had not developed such a strength that, in spite of the
extremely scarce food, it had been able to withstand even such a
strain quite well. And there were also times and hours of
relaxation. This was because father did not take a single walk
and did not make a single errant to the countryside without taking
me along. He used to pose only this one condition, that I would
not miss a single moment in school on account of this. The walks
through forests and groves were always most interesting, because
of his rich knowledge of the flora. But we did not spent all of
this time outdoors. There were were certain days for certain
inns. There met the teacher Schulze, the principal, the rich man
Wetzel, the grocer Thiele, the merchant Vogel, the captain of the
rifle-men Lippold, and others for bowling or for playing skat.
Father was always one of them, and me too, because I had to. He
thought, I belonged to him. He did not like to see me with other
boys, since I would have been unsupervised then. He did not have
the slightest concept for the fact that being with him, in the
company of grown men, was certainly not the best place for me
either. There, I could hear things and make observations, which
had better been kept from such a youthful boy. By the way, father
always practised moderation, even in the most happily drinking
company. I have never seen him drunk. Whenever he went to an
inn, his regular limit was one glass of simple beer at seven
pfennig and one glass caraway-liquor or a double juniper-liquor at
six pfennig; I was allowed to sip of this, too. On special
occasions he shared a piece of cake for six pfennig with me. No
one has ever warned him against bringing me into such a company of
adults, not even the principal or the minister, who also joined in
occasionally. At least those gentlemen should have known that,
even when the conversation centred on permissable and perfectly
clean topics, I was, as a silent, but very attentive listener,
nonetheless introduced to things and affairs which should have
been several decades in the future for me. I did not mature
early, since this term is only used in respect to one's sexuality,
and I did not get to hear anything about that, but rather
something much worse: I was lifted out of my childhood and
dragged onto that hard and filthy path on which my feet had to
feel like walking on broken glass. How well did I feel
afterwards, when I came to grandmother and could escape with her
to my dear land of make-believe! Naturally, I was much too young
to realize that this land was founded on the truest and firmest
part of reality. To me it had no feet; it floated in the air;
only later, after I had worked my way up to fully understand it,
it could offer me the support, I so desperately needed.

Then came the day, when a world revealed itself to me, which has
grabbed hold of me ever since. The theatre came to town. Just an
quite ordinary, miserable puppet-show, but a theatre nonetheless.
This was at the master weaver's house. First rows three groschen,
second rows two groschen, third rows one groschen, children half
price. I was permitted to go with grandmother. This cost fifteen
pfennig for both of us. The piece was called: "The miller's rose
or the battle of Jena." My eyes were burning; I was all ablaze
inside. Puppets, puppets, puppets! But for me, they were alive.
They talked; they loved and hated; they suffered; they made
great, daring decisions; they sacrificed themselves for king and
for fatherland. There it was again, what the cantor had said and
admired, then! My heart was cheering. After we had returned
home, grandmother had to describe to me how the puppets were
moved.

"On a wooden cross", she explained to me. "From this wooden cross
the strings extend downwards, which are attached to the limbs of
the puppets. They move, as soon as the cross above is moved."

"But they do speak!" I said.

"No, but the person holding the cross in his hands speaks. It is
just as in real life."

"What do you mean?"

"You don't understand this yet; but you will learn to understand
it."

I did not rest, until we were permitted to go once again. The
play was "Doctor Faust or God, man, and devil". It would be to no
avail, if I attempted to put the impression this play had on me
into words. This was not Goethe's Faust, but the Faust of the
ancient, traditional tale, not a drama summing up the entire
philosophy of a great poet and a bit more, but rather a scream to
heaven for redemption from the torment and fear of the worldly
life, emerging directly from the deepest depth of the people's
soul. I heard, I felt this scream, and I joined in with it,
though I was just a poor, ignorant boy, hardly nine years old
then. Goethe's Faust would not have been able to tell me, as a
child, anything; to be honest, it still does not tell me even
today what it probably wanted to tell and should have told
mankind; but those puppets spoke loudly, almost too loudly, and
what they said was great, infinitely great, because it was so
simple, so infinitely simple: a devil, who may only return to
God, if he brings that human soul along! And those strings, those
strings, which are all reaching upwards, straight into heaven!
And everything, everything moving down there is attached to the
cross, to pain, torment, the sufferings of this world. Whatever
is not attached to this cross is obsolete, is motionless, is dead
from heaven's perspective! Of course, the latter thoughts did not
occur to me then yet, not for a long time; but grandmother
talked in this manner, though not thus clearly, and whatever part
of it I did not see vividly before my very eyes, I nevertheless
started to sense in some uncertain manner. Being a member of the
students' choir, I had to attend church two times on Sundays and
holidays, and I enjoyed it. I cannot remember ever having missed
any of these religious services. But I am honest enough to say
that, in spite of all the spiritually uplifting experiences I had
there, I never came home from church with such an indescribably
deep impression, as that time from the puppet-show. Since that
night, up to this day, I regard the theatre as a place through the
gates of which nothing impure, ugly, or unholy must ever intrude.
When I asked the cantor, who had thought up and written down this
play, he answered that this had not been a single person, but
rather the soul of the entire human race, and a great, famous
German poet, Wolfgang Goethe by name, had turned it into a
wonderful work of art, written not for puppets, but for living
human beings. At this point, I quickly interjected: "Cantor, I
also want to become such a great poet, writing not for puppets,
but for living human beings! How do I have to go about it?"
Then, he gave me a long look with an almost pitiful smile and
answered: "Go about it however you like, my boy, you'll end up
sacrificing your work and your existence for nothing more than
puppets most of the time." Of course, I was not able to
understand this response until later; but those two nights had
undoubtedly a very marked effect on my little soul. God, man, and
devil have been and continue to be my favourite topics, and the
idea that most people were nothing but puppets, not moving by
themselves, but being moved, is always nearby in the background of
everything I do. Is it God or the devil, is it another human
being, a champion of the mind or a champion of arms, holding the
cross in his hands, from which the strings extend downwards, to
influence the human race? This is never obvious from the start,
but can only be determined later by the consequences.

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