OD by Karl Hans Strobl and translated by Joe E Bandel
Chapter 17
Karl Schuh had exhibited his apparatus in the riding school of Prince Liechtenstein and achieved splendid results before an audience of artists and scholars.
Reichenbach had been pleased: “Keep working like this. The matter must succeed. You’re just not enough of a charlatan to really get it going. You can’t approach the masses with modesty, doubts, or apologies; you must impress the crowd with self-confidence. The multitude doesn’t think, it believes, it wants to admire. You must astonish them with wonders.”
Despite Schuh’s progress and successes depressed and somewhat subdued, and there was good reason for it. The work on his instruments consumed enormous sums; Reichenbach had to follow the first amount with a second, nearly double that, and now Schuh stood again with empty pockets. It wasn’t the debts themselves that overwhelmed him, but primarily the debt of gratitude into which he had become entangled—a painful matter for a man who, behind his benefactor’s back and against his will, had won the love of his daughter.
“It’s just,” says Schuh, quite downcast, “it’s just… that I can’t go on. I’m out of funds. Several thousand gulden in operating capital would be necessary.”
“Asking for money again?” asks the Freiherr, suddenly cooling off.
“This is the most critical moment of the entire venture. It must be pushed through now. I want to take my apparatus to Paris and London. In Vienna, there’s no further progress. A Parisian theater director has invited me to give performances.”
But today, Reichenbach shows no understanding. “You probably want to take a pleasure trip, my dear! And you seem to think I’m a money tree. I can’t dispose of just any sum.”
Schuh sees his work at risk and becomes eloquent: “You’ve supported me so generously until now—surely you won’t abandon me now? I’m willing to transfer ownership of the entire apparatus, with all its accessories, to you. I’d be merely the caretaker of your property and grant you every conceivable oversight. Don’t you trust me?”
“I trust you, certainly! And I believe in your venture. But what security can you offer me? This is something only you can personally carry forward, not someone else. And who guarantees me that one fine day a roof tile won’t fall and kill you, or a drunk cab driver won’t knock you over? Where would my money be then?”
Schuh says nothing more in response. Reichenbach refuses—it’s incomprehensible that he closes his purse just now, but one must come to terms with it. Well, perhaps that’s just as well; it eases the conscience a bit, and after all, one has pride and doesn’t need to beg. Schuh clenches his defiance; now he’ll push forward on his own strength and reach his goal without Reichenbach.
A few days later, Reichenbach asks, “Where is Schuh?”
The Freiherr had commissioned Schuh to make daguerreotype—or as it’s now called, photographic—recordings in the darkroom, but the results weren’t particularly convincing. Now Reichenbach has devised new experimental setups, and besides, new light-sensitive plates have recently come onto the market, promising better outcomes. Reichenbach urgently needs the images to accompany his next papers, which, like the previous ones, he intends to publish in Liebig’s Annalen der Chemie.
Reason enough for an impatient inquiry about Schuh’s whereabouts.
But Hermine replies calmly: “Schuh is on his way to Paris.”
“To Paris? Why, for heaven’s sake?”
“He told you. He accepted the invitation from the Parisian theater director.”
“So, to Paris,” rages Reichenbach, “that’s wonderful, that’s splendid. Utterly delighted! There you have it again—what an unreliable fellow he is.”
“You shouldn’t say that,” Hermine says seriously. “He’s been working on his invention for years and doesn’t want to stop halfway.”
“He has no foundation, no moral grounding; he’s an intrusive rogue.”
“Didn’t you yourself invite him to your house in vain for long enough?”
“Now I’ll throw him out if he comes back.”
Reichenbach is beside himself, as always when an obstacle blocks his path. But it’s no use. Schuh is indeed on his way to Paris. He undertook the journey with no more money than one would take for a pleasure trip, and he’s not traveling alone but with a forty-two-hundred-pound apparatus and two assistants to operate it. Progress is slow; he must earn travel money along the way, giving performances in all the small villages on his route, often with no result but embarrassment and frustration.
In Salzburg, he receives a letter from the Freiherr. Gentle reproaches for fleeing at such a tense moment, and a request: if he reaches Stuttgart, he could do something for the Freiherr. Once, they valued him in his homeland; the Prime Minister, Freiherr von Mauclair, had secured him orders and nobility. Now he’s been slandered among his old friends and the king. And the Württemberg envoy in Vienna, Baron Linden, is outright his enemy, so Schuh must put in a word for the mistreated man. Not a word about another matter—Schuh learns of that only through Hermine’s letter, received in Munich. Frau Hofrätin Reißnagel has been murdered; two men have been arrested on suspicion, and the father is in a mood worse than can be imagined.
Unease overtakes Schuh; he can well imagine how Hermine fares when the father is in a bad mood. She doesn’t complain—she’s too brave to complain—but that’s unnecessary. Schuh already knows how things must be for her now. What can he do? Schuh must continue his journey, however unfavorably it begins; Paris, Paris will turn things around—perhaps he can even go to London and then return to count the money on Reichenbach’s table.
For now, though, it doesn’t look promising. It’s a laborious struggle; the Munich crowd lingers over beer, and the king has a taste for the arts but nothing for the natural sciences. Schuh bypasses Stuttgart, turns toward Nuremberg, the old imperial city Nuremberg, with its proud, wealthy citizenry, should give him a boost.
But the proud, wealthy citizenry fails to materialize, and Schuh performs for three nights to empty halls. Then another letter from Hermine arrives. Things with the father have become intolerable; the Viennese resent him for the Hofrätin’s death, though many also publicly mock the Od. But the more people withdraw from the father, the more stubbornly he clings to his discovery—it’s a kind of obsession that has seized him. Hermine doesn’t complain this time either, but this letter is a cry for help—Schuh has no doubt about that.
Between the lines, it reads: Come back and free me; I can’t bear it anymore!
Where is Paris? Paris vanishes on the horizon; it simply sinks. What use is Paris to Schuh? Over there, a heart that loves him and cries for him suffers. Schuh’s invention is a lost cause. Let it plunge into the abyss; let someone else find it and piece the wreckage together!
At the factory where Reinhold is employed, they need a capable man like Schuh. Reinhold knocked on his door months ago—a sharp mind is welcome there. In God’s name! Now Schuh knows what he must do.
Reichenbach had just returned from a trip to Ternitz, where he had inspected his ironworks again. Yes, they now produced nothing but railway tracks—nothing else—the entire operation had been converted. There wasn’t much demand yet; the large orders hadn’t come in, but they had to be prepared, and they were. The railway tracks piled up in warehouses and yards into mountains.
The Freiherr had been home less than half an hour when Semmelweis arrived. “Congratulations,” said Reichenbach, extending both hands to Semmelweis, “I just read in the paper about your appointment as a private lecturer.”
Semmelweis raised his eyebrows, and his sturdy frame shook with an ominous laugh. The laughter stopped abruptly, and Semmelweis said gruffly, “I have you to thank for it!”
“No need for that!” Reichenbach waved off. “The university can consider itself fortunate.”
Semmelweis truly had no reason to thank the Freiherr; the Freiherr’s influence didn’t extend that far, as Semmelweis believed. His suggestions had been received with polite words at the relevant quarters; it was extraordinarily kind of the Herr Baron to intervene, and attention had also been drawn to Doctor Semmelweis’s merits from other sides—they would see what could be done, certainly! After years, it had finally come to pass that Semmelweis was appointed a private lecturer, and Reichenbach himself was surprised. It likely didn’t stem from his advocacy, but Semmelweis thanked him, and the Freiherr let it rest there. Besides, Ottane was a nurse with Semmelweis—she had been shameless enough to take up a profession like a common woman from the lower classes. The luster of his name was tarnished by this degenerate child, and it was quite fitting to restore it with a success, even if the Freiherr could hardly claim much credit for it.
“Since it was you,” the doctor continued, “who advocated for me, I must also bid you farewell!”
“Farewell? Are you leaving?”
“I’m leaving service.”
Reichenbach looked at the doctor attentively. What was wrong with Semmelweis? In that well-fed body raged the fanaticism of a gaunt ascetic; at first glance, he seemed the embodiment of comfort with his fat deposits, but beneath that burned a torch of passion. “I don’t understand,” said Reichenbach slowly. “You’re leaving service? Now, when after years of struggle for recognition, you’ve finally become a private lecturer?”
“Yes, you advocated for me. And Skoda, Hebra, and even Klein’s son-in-law Karl took my side, along with a few others. But do you know what Klein dares to do? He comes to the clinic, has me report my findings from examining the patients, and then has a midwife verify my examinations.”
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